Monthly Archives: July 2015

He’s a Jew.

He’s a highly intelligent and sophisticated journalist and commentator.

He calls himself a conservative but takes liberal views on several social issues, including abortion and gay marriage. He writes for The New York Times as a columnist. He has been a regular on National Public Radio.

He greatly admires John McCain, and is a Republican who says the party must move beyond Goldwater/Reagan ideas of limited government. However, he has worked for such conservative publications as National Review, The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard.

He’s suspected by both the Right and the Left – which means he’s unpredictable in his views.

Some would say conflicted.

Yes, I’ll admit it, I like David Brooks. Not because I always agree with him but because I know he’s thoughtful and insightful – and worth reading and listening to.

Brooks has written a few books. The last one, just published, is entitled The Road to Character.

 Mr. Brooks shares studies of several historical figures from Augustine to Eisenhower and analyzes how they developed their character.

 “I wrote this book not sure I could follow the road to character,” Brooks says, “but I wanted at least to know what the road looks like and how other people have trodden it.”

Ironically, Brooks takes a Christian view.

Followers of Jesus Christ, especially those in leadership, would do well to consider the profoundly orthodox biblical perspective offered by this unorthodox political commentator and cultural Jew. Brooks is a breath of fresh air – bracing perhaps but a wonderful antidote to our pervasive shallowness.

In his closing chapter, The Big Me, Brooks takes direct aim at the arrogance and superficiality that threaten American Christianity.

He enumerates a Humility Code which he argues is central to walking the road to character.

“We don’t live for happiness, we live for holiness” Brooks writes.

“But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do”, Peter insists, “for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (I Peter 1:15, NIV).

Pursuing happiness may be viewed as a semi-constitutional right, but God places a much higher priority on being holy. Peter traces the divine command back to Leviticus. David Brooks is familiar with the scriptures and the ancient Jewish law. And he understands that the singular desire for personal satisfaction breeds selfishness and entitlement.

Holiness breeds character.

Some of this country’s biggest and fastest growing churches feed on greed, envy and headlong ambition.  Materialism has replaced spirituality – in fact, it has been falsely represented as spirituality.

“God wants you to be happy!”

But an ancient writer called that pursuit “chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

When Robert E. Lee handed a small child back to his parents he told them, “Teach him to deny himself.”  Here was honest and simple wisdom spoken by a man of greatness who had walked, through adversity, the road to character.

Jesus tells us to take up our cross.

“We are flawed creatures,” Brooks reminds us. This is the key to grasping the crisis of our time with peace and discernment.  Man’s inhumanity; his cruelty and oppression; his audacious immorality and his fearsome capacity for unmitigated evil are all rooted in this fundamental truth about the world and our place in it.

Calvinists call this “the total depravity of man”. They are right. In the face of recorded history and in the moral rebellion and turmoil of our new century, even the most incurable optimist must concede this central truth.

“Humility is the greatest virtue,” Brooks points out, and “pride is the central vice.”

CS Lewis agreed, adding that in the sin of pride, all other sins find their true origin. Pride makes us entitled – to success, health and wealth. Pride makes us too easily and irreverently familiar with a sovereign and awesome God, too unwilling to bow before him, too quick to judge others and too independent to stand in the need of grace.

Pride was the cause of humankind’s original fall and it continues to cause heartbreaking disasters. The narcissism that infects our culture is the result of defiant pride.

Humility is the path to true greatness and the only road to character. Proverbs and the psalms reflect it, Paul and Peter exhorted it and Jesus modeled it.  Every one of the lives Brooks studied and wrote about was marked by humility. It may be an elusive virtue but it is an essential one and well worth cultivating.

Humility makes us indebted – to God for his mercy and to others because of it.

“The struggle against sin and for virtue is the central drama of life,” Brooks asserts, and “character is built in the course of your inner confrontation.”

That struggle lasts a lifetime. It’s called perseverance.

As great as he was, the apostle Paul mourned over his too often defeated battle against his sinful nature. In wrestling with my own flesh, I have often drawn comfort from Paul’s inner conflict.

“No person can achieve self-mastery on his or her own,” Brooks concludes, and so “we are all ultimately saved by grace.”

Indeed we are Mr. Brooks.

It’s God’s matchless and amazing grace that gives us the strength, joy and confidence to travel our own road to character.

May God bless you and your family.

It was quite a sight.

The White House, historic icon and symbol of national leadership, was seen now in a new light.

The executive mansion, home of our presidents, over which its first occupant, John Adams,

had solemnly prayed, “May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof,” was suddenly bathed in the rainbow colors of homosexual triumph and pride.

This desecration of an American symbol was ordered by an enthusiastic president who, with nothing to risk politically, is clearly out of the closet on this issue.

President Obama, who has been described as America’s first “gay president”, called the gay-colored White House “pretty cool” and “a good thing.”

It was part of a national celebration.

Earlier that day, the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 split decision, declared homosexual marriage legal in all fifty states. It is now, said the court, a constitutional right that all Americans are duty bound to recognize, respect and support.

In his vigorous dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, “Who do we think we are?”

The Court, in declaring homosexuality socially normative, legally protected and morally permissible – as the law of the land – has inverted right and wrong. Dismissing the legislative process and the millennia-long collective wisdom of civilization, the court not only re-defined the institution of marriage – it sanctioned and speeded America’s path toward the moral abyss.

The rainbow symbol suddenly was everywhere. Major corporations began marketing it to show that they too believed in love and tolerance.  Gay Pride parades were held in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. Thousands in the streets cheered, danced and hugged.

But for millions of other Americans it was a day for mourning.

This is a time of sadness that a great republic we all love has gone so far astray from God’s moral law. Truths deemed self-evident by our nation’s founders as derived from Nature and Nature’s God have been defied in the celebration of unnatural acts.

“Jerusalem staggers,” wrote the prophet Isaiah. “Judah is falling; their words and deeds are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence.”

The arrogance and pride of the people are manifest in their open and shameless rebellion.

^“The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves” (Isaiah 3:8-9, NIV).

Nor does corrupt and compromising leadership – both religious and civic – escape the divine judgment.

“Your leaders mislead you; they send you down the wrong path” (Isaiah 3:12, NLT).

The foundations of morality and faith in God which emboldened 13 wilderness colonies to challenge the greatest power on earth are crumbling. The current of culture is strong and fast-moving.

So, how should Christians live?

Redemptively.

We must not apologize, we must not compromise, and we must not temporize.  Nothing for the follower of Jesus Christ has changed with the court’s decision.

Because we worship an immutable God, nothing ever will.

We grieve because we love America. We know that the most strenuous dissent often goes hand in hand with the deepest patriotism. So our sadness is the broken heart of a wounded lover. Because we cherish all that this country stands for – and our noble heritage – we mourn this marked departure from the ancient and good paths.

This is not a time for panic or fear.

This is a time for choosing.

Being a prophetic minority will strengthen our faith and hope in God. It will make us more courageous Christians, prepared to stand for our beliefs or it will condemn us to a quisling accommodation with the world.

The day for straddling is over.

It is time to acknowledge the yawning chasm between legality and morality.

“Here I stand,” declared Martin Luther to a corrupt world, “I can do no other.”

Every American pastor worthy of that honor needs to be preaching God’s whole counsel and declaring his Christian conscience on the moral issues of our day. The godly pulpit ought to be the last place to try and hide. Christians need thoughtful, informed and principled leadership from their shepherds.

We must pray for our beloved America. That God may yet shed his grace on our land, knowing that spiritual revival and healing is still possible.

We must not only defend biblical marriage, we must resolve to be more devoted and loving husbands, wives and parents.

We must also love and respect our gay neighbor. He has not been created gay but he is still created in God’s divine image, no less than any Christian. The world knows the follower of Christ by his love. Let’s always remember and practice that truth.

In another moral crisis, the outcome of which we celebrate this weekend, Thomas Paine reminded his fellow citizens:

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”

Let us remain soldiers of the cross and followers of the Lamb. May you and I never fear to own his cause or blush to speak his name.

And let us say a prayer for our country.

May God bless you and your family.