The deserted village

Once upon a time, in a land of mountains, rivers and fertile valleys there stood a village. This village, although small, believed itself to be of singular value, for unlike most small villages, this village had a purpose beyond mere existence. From the outside it looked much like any other village, but from the inside things were very different. Each member of the community carried the conviction that what they did mattered to the entire world. Their role in the world involved the making of a simple white cloth distinctive for its alpine purity. The village founder had invented this cloth at a time when no cloth in the world could claim to be perfectly white. The process whereby the sheep’s wool would be transformed into a pure absence of color (without even the slightest hint of a stain) represented the very latest in fabric manufacture. The founder and his friends soon decided to abandon the usual lifestyle of rural villages and become full-time cloth makers. They organized the village into working groups—some raised the sheep, others processed the wool through repeated washings, still others spun, while the rest worked the looms. The village had one purpose—to provide the world with the only truly white cloth that could be had.

With time, the cloth attracted attention. Kings and Queens, statesmen, bankers, and even the religious elite flocked to the village to first see the new cloth and then, of course, to buy it. For a time, white became all the fashion as thousands came to associate this cloth with all that was good and true and precious in the world. Dyed cloth lost market value. Scarlet cloth, especially, lost its appeal and even the blues, yellows and deep purples looked artificial for their dyed appearance and tendency to fade over time. The village prospered; it even grew as people moved there in order to help produce more of the miracle cloth. The future of the village stood secure—its looms worked long hours, and its people rejoiced that they had a good purpose in the world.

As the village prospered, it used its wealth to build workshops, schools, and churches. It sent some of its best artisans out to the far flung reaches of the world with samples of the white cloth. These men and women, in turn, established colonies that also produced the white cloth in careful obedience to the original method. Thus, over time, the village ceased to be just a village—it became a culture and a way of life. For a long time, nothing changed. Nobody thought that any other cloth would ever challenge the purity of the white cloth.

Strangely, the first hint that the village’s white cloth empire might not last came from within. A lone voice suggested that, perhaps, the imitators and the competitors (and there were many) might not be so bad after all. To be sure, their white cloth often emerged stained with water marks and even the occasional dark spot, but maybe pure white cloth had been over-rated. Perfection seems attractive at first, but over time that kind of standard of production can become tiresome.

At first none of the villagers paid any mind to such ideas, and eventually the dissenting voice just died away. But a germ had been planted. After so many years of success, it seemed impossible that white cloth could ever be questioned. But as new generations were born, they began to wonder, “why and on what grounds do we assume that white cloth is the best?” Once these questions circulated around the village, trouble began to brew. The white cloth doctrine had never been questioned before—the village simply believed. But now it seemed necessary to evaluate this belief.

Furthermore, the demand for pure white cloth had diminished over time. Competitors had tried to imitate the pure white cloth; now they just turned out fantastic colored cloth, since the demand for color far exceeded the demand for white. Indeed, the once much maligned scarlet or red cloths came roaring back into fashion as if the white cloth had never been. Red, red, red—like a pageant of livid rebellion it spread over the world until the village began to worry that its pure white cloth would soon become obsolete. Stalwarts proclaimed the eternal verities of pure white wool. But the red cloth now captured the world’s fancy.

Gradually, the village found itself forced by circumstances, as it were, into making other types of cloth. At first, the white cloth remained pure white with just a hint of color along the base of each bolt—a dyed fringe, as it were, that did not so much interrupt the white purity of the cloth as offer a distinct contrast or heightening of the whiteness. This seemed a reasonable compromise, since this new design did not wholly abandon the white concept even as it gave the village freedom to experiment with using color. White remained the authoritative color, but more care now went into improving the color dyes.

The village began to change. No longer distinct in the world and, thus, no longer a leader, the village became just another imitator. They still produced the white cloth, but in lesser amounts. Quality control suffered—the white, although still white, was not as pure as before. Nobody seemed to notice, however, since color now absorbed them. The old manuals lay untouched in the village library—for years nobody cared to read them. Villagers lost the original processing methods through gradual neglect. A few old people continued to work at home in the old ways—but they did not sell much of their pure white cloth. The young gave up the white cloth altogether. The village museum had a special exhibit for the old ways, and each year the village held a special celebration of the founder and his amazing invention, but everyone in attendance wore colors (although they never wore pure scarlet or purple—that would have been a heresy!)— still, most agreed, the pure white of the olden days seemed entirely dated and, of course, impractical. More to the point, it no longer sold.

Much of the goodness of the old ways continued—the village remained close-knit, and workers enjoyed a high standard of living along with a palpable sense of a general purpose and cohesion. The children all attended the village school; the adults ate the same food, wore the same clothes and enjoyed the same stories. Their colored cloth (now with a distinctive white band along the base) won prizes and even sold much better than the old pure white cloth ever had. Often, you could hear people wondering aloud how they could have lived so long with nothing better than dreary old white. After all, it was much easier to add color to wool than to try to get all the wool into a condition of pure white—dyeing the cloth, it turned out, was much easier than washing all the impurities out. Indeed, you could leave many of the impurities in the wool by concealing them under a rich dye of purple or scarlet.

But the villagers’ occasional reverence for the old ways did not last. Among some, it seemed silly to stick to the band of white amidst so much color—why include any white at all? Why not just do solid color? These persons began to leave the village. At first nobody noticed, but in time, it seemed that village gatherings got smaller and smaller. A few radical voices claimed that the only way to get the village back on track would be to revert to total and pure white cloth production again; but saner voices knew this to be impossible, since nobody really had the stomach to do all that washing again. Furthermore, few in the outside world wanted to buy the old pure white cloth. Meanwhile, the village shrank. Fewer students attended the village school. Some parents argued that the school curriculum focused too much on the past, and they argued that the techniques taught for the use of color dyes lacked rigor. These parents, naturally, sent their children to outside schools where the red and purple dyes had been perfected. And these children, naturally, did not return to their home village except to visit their aging parents or to peruse the museum exhibits and smile smugly at their good fortune for having escaped the provincial life.

The day came when the village school closed. This happened on the same day that a rich son of one of the village elders (he had made his fortune in red cloth!) donated a massive sum of money to the restoration and improvement of the village museum. The village students now all attended a more prestigious school noted for its brilliant red and purple dyes. Some of the parents moved out of the village in order to be closer to this new school. The students came home from school with their hands looking and smelling of red and purple dyes. The parents beamed proudly at their children’s good fortune in the world.

Finally, as the old village slowly died, their remained just one old woman who still recalled how to manufacture the pure white cloth that had, at one time, given the village its place in the world. She continued to make the cloth of her ‘people’ even though her people were no more. Each day she washed, carded, spun and washed again the wool into the purest white cloth the world had ever known. Yet nobody cared and nobody knew. Yet, she still worked each day to finish a remnant of cloth; a scrap or a little fragment that, although small, perfectly reproduced the character of the original. I am told that this woman did not die. She lives still, and she still makes the pure white cloth; but she does this alone and with some sadness, but always hoping that some young person, a person with a life yet to be lived, will come to her house and ask to be taught to how to make the purest white cloth ever known to the world. She waits—her door never closes, and if you stand outside you can hear her singing the woof and the weave of her doctrine in clear white notes that linger in the air as if to say, “Come to my loom, come and be taught, come to hear, and then turn your hands to the white”.

Astrology and Christian prayer: an unlikely union

We live in a spiritual age. According to a recent Harris poll, some 31 percent or 48 million Americans believe in astrology; 31 percent of Americans believe in witches, and 36 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Furthermore, about 80 percent of Americans believe in God while 68 percent of Americans believe that the soul never dies. Meanwhile, 27 percent of Americans attend church regularly. This string of statistics is just that—numbers, but they can be suggestive. For instance, the percentage of Americans who believe in astrology (31 percent) is the same as the percentage of those who believe in witches. But I would like to know how many of those Americans who believe in astrology and/or witches also believe in God. The Pew Research Center found that “more than 1 in 5 U.S. Christians believe in reincarnation, astrology and in the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects… many also consult psychics….” Thus, it would appear that fully 20 percent of American Christians embrace aspects of the occult as integral to their Christian Faith. There are a number of possible reasons for this shocking syncretism. The Harris Poll reveals that only 36 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is the Word of God. It appears that the bulk of Americans who believe in ‘God’ do not consult the Bible as a guide to truth. Postmodern Christianity is more eclectic and far more elastic in terms of personal preferences and needs than its modern predecessor. The rule of the subjective self in our culture means that anything can be true if it fits my current need, and, conversely, nothing can be true when it fails to meet the minimum standard of my need.

But a secondary question should be posed: to what extent are all Christians--even those of us who reject astrology—culturally inclined to seek out answers to life’s difficult questions through the avenue of the Self? If one out of five Christians seeks to understand God’s will for their lives through astrology, how many Christians, who would never consult the stars, try to discover God’s will through a pseudo-prayer life which, in effect, functions in precisely the same way as horoscopes do? To put the question more forcefully, to what extent do we try to discover God’s will for our lives through prayers that enable us to avoid exercising faith, submitting to God’s revealed will, or avoid doing what we don’t want to do? I am not trying to say that, formally, this is the same thing as practicing astrology, but I am interested in the possibility that even though we practice what, on the surface, appear to be biblically sanctioned methods for ascertaining God’s will, it could be that in our hearts, we are trying to use God in the same way others try to use the stars—that is, as a substitute for faith, godly reason and biblically informed decision making. In this vein, I found a website that advertises online courses on how to start an Astrology business. In the introduction, the website identifies why so many Americans have become clients of professional astrologers: “clients want Astrology as a tool to get clarity about important issues in their lives.” This quotation is not especially profound except that it reveals a number of cultural assumptions that we Christians need to be aware of:

• Astrology is a tool: astrology is merely a means to an end. This is the key aspect of all false religions. The pagan and occult faiths offer their adherents so-called tools as the primary inducement to discipleship. In other words, astrology is a means to an end and the end is personal knowledge which, in turn, is supposed to lead to personal happiness and security. Astrology is not an end in itself—only a tool. The real god in astrology is the self. By learning what the stars tell you, you become better equipped to lead your life with more direction, more purpose, increased knowledge, and better judgment. You become, in effect, your own god. As confidence in the secular model wanes, Americans turn increasingly to the spiritual; however, the spiritual they turn to functions in much the same way as their secular ideology did before they lost confidence in it. In short, these spiritual tools serve only to keep the self and the human in the position of absolute power. Like the idols-makers of old, we worship what we have made in order to maintain the illusion that we are gods.
• Americans need clarity in their lives: this second element in the quotation states the end or purpose of astrology. Postmodern Americans do not know how to live, they are not sure how to make decisions, they feel confused, and they no longer believe they can live a good life through the now largely discredited means of secular reason or common sense solutions to life’s problems. They seek clarity—that is, they want to see things more clearly than they do now. Astrology seems to offer a vision that comes from outside our limited sphere. This is a god-like perspective that humans cannot achieve from within the limitations of temporal existence, but, ironically, it remains a perspective which we control, since the stars only predict and shape our lives in ways that help us feel powerful without God.

The astrology website later assures its would be clients that, “you do not need to believe in Astrology to make a lot of money as an astrologer.” The same could be said of any person who decides to make selling religion his career: you do not need to believe in God to sell religion, since, after all, many postmodern individuals seek pastors for the same reason they seek astrologers—to use religion as a tool in order to achieve clarity in their lives. What, then, is the difference between God as God and God as a tool or, indeed, prayer as prayer and prayer as merely a means to personal satisfaction? That question, I submit, has not been asked in our churches; nor will it likely be posed, since to ask that question runs the risk of subverting the entire religious apparatus as we know it.

Many of us, even conservative iterations of us, employ a version of Christian prayer that has all the hallmarks of astrology: we use prayer as a tool, and we use prayer merely to achieve personal clarity (emphasis on personal). In fact, the Biblical conception of prayer may offend us, since we have become so secular in our religious pretensions that we hardly recognize the Bible, itself, as anything more than a tool for the endorsement of our personal needs. Actually, in the Bible, prayer functions more like a tool applied to us than as a tool to leverage God, and there lies the rub. To be sure, God expects us to ask and ask again--not because He has to be persuaded, but only because until we venture everything on faith (as informed by the Bible) we have not prayed at all. I may never consult my Horoscope, but I may pray merely in order to bless my own will, control a situation, or enter a proviso into my spiritual contract with God, so that if things do not go well, I can always attribute my failures and mistakes to God, who, after all, affirmed my poor decisions to begin with. The seemingly devout also employ prayer in order to avoid making tough decisions: I will pray, and then God will give me a powerful emotion or impression in lieu of my having to take the risk of actually deciding what to do.

Prayer, it seems, may become one of the most powerful weapons of the truly godless in the church, since Christian prayer now enjoys almost universal popularity, not least because most prayers that I hear ignore the plain testimony of the Bible: we pray for health and healing while we feed our addictions; we pray for the Holy Spirit to lead us at the same time we entrench ourselves in secular lifestyles; we ask God to protect us in our cars even as we expose our children to eternal hazards on the television and the internet; we pray that Jesus may come soon, as we spend our fortunes on toys; we pray for others around us to be converted as we refuse to give up our own idols. We do all this in the most sincere guise: the fervent Christian prayer. It may be the single most revolting aspect of the emerging postmodern liturgy—prayer as the pious expression of unmitigated self-worship. Its very sanctity makes prayer a deadly element once it has been allowed to work free of its biblical moorings, and that, I submit, has already happened.

The other day, while walking my dog around the airport at my campus, I happened upon some kind of hand-held digital device lying on the ground. Eager to return it to its owner, I pushed a conspicuous button and discovered the owner’s email. I quickly scanned the list of messages in hope of finding who owned the device, but I soon discovered that one specific type of email predominated: the owner’s daily horoscope. I eventually contacted the owner, and he turned out to be a young man from a good Adventist home. He was very grateful to have his device back; I wonder if he felt lost without it.

What we may not yet suspect is this: the current generation of Adventist youth and college age students are quietly and persistently forging a new Adventist syncretism in which previously antithetical categories may now happily coexist. We need to realize that they may be praying at Vespers and reading their horoscopes on Sabbath morning without the least tincture of guilt or unease; this, as it happens, is the simply the end of a long process of typical Adventist inculturation, or the adaptation of doctrine to fit the culture. This may shock some Adventist adults, but it should not: we taught them to do this. Here is a test: the next time you pray, ask yourself if you are not merely consulting God as your personal insurance policy, rich uncle, much abused therapist, or, worst of all, your ghostly doppelganger. Do you pray to understand and submit to the will of Almighty God as revealed in the Bible, or do you pray to bend the will of a weak and indulgent God to your will as informed by your desires? This test is not as easy as it seems; in fact you may have to pray for God to show you which you are--now that would be a real prayer.