THIS IS SERIOUS

The casualisation of our society has become a serious concern. If this casualisation merely concerned fashion, you have every right to think of me as a pathetic stick in the mud. But right now we are facing some extremely serious challenges and it's time for us to get serious!

The opposite of 'serious' I will call 'casual'. And when I use the word 'casual' I am using it as a catch-all word for, informal, joking, non-urgent, trivial. Of course, being casual is appropriate for the right ocassion. F.W. Boreham tells the story of his young girls asking him each weeknight whether it was going to be "slippers or shoes tonight?" If it was a "slippers night" his girls knew that their daddy would be home and available for them to sit on his knees in front of the fire and listen to him tell them stories. But that's not the only thing opposite to serious. Opposed to 'serious' are attitudes beyond being merely casual. These attitudes begin to venture into potentially life-threatening areas. When a parachutist doesn't take the need to check his parachute seriously before a jump, or when a motorcyclist doesn't think seriously about overtaking a truck around a bend, or when a Christian doesn't take his spiritual health seriously - the results can be anything but casual !

As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Second Timothy 4:5

Serious doesn't have to mean dull, boring, bland. But here's the problem with saying that: I have to say it because our culture has been so casualised! That is, when you undertaking serious activities it maybe dull, boring or bland. Police doing night after night of surveillance is 99% dull, boring, bland - but it has meant that many heinous acts of criminal violence have been averted and countless numbers of people's lives have been spared. It is a statement of our youthified and casualised society that betrays our at times rampant immaturity that wants everything to be fun, exciting, and edgy. Fun has its place for those who take life seriously but it is not given the status of an idol to be conferred with before a course of action is taken. This must sound like Martian to those who find life itself so boring that they have to jump off a cliff with either a rubber rope attached to their ankles or a suit of wings zipped over their bodies in the pursuit of finding even greater fun and exciting thrills to fuel their need to be distracted from the serious matters of life. It takes a serious person to commit to one other person for the rest of their lives with a public vow to remain committed "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till we are parted by death". It takes a serious person to accept that sexual fidelity to that person they have committed their heart and soul to also includes their body and that such an act of intimacy is required to maintain sacred union, express the highest act of physical surrender to another person, and to produce the fruit of that union and love by conceiving new life together. Marriage is serious.

But there are preconditions: A leader must be well-thought-of, committed to his wife, cool and collected, accessible, and hospitable. He must know what he's talking about
First Timothy 3:2 THE MESSAGE

To be casual when seriousness is called for is to be flippant. To be flippant with your spiritual health is to risk peril - but not just for yourself but those vulnerable ones looking on.

¶ "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
Mark 9:42

Too many times as a pastor I have seen a parent not take their spiritual responsibilities seriously enough. When this happens there is an almost predictable peril that creeps in. Such other lesser, but none the less still, serious matters are also treated flippantly. They begin to neglect their spouse and thereby cease taking their marriage vows seriously enough. They begin to neglect coming to the house of God together as a family seriously enough (note Hebrews 10:25) and instead thereby teach their children that God isn't really that important and His Word shouldn't be taken so seriously (Deut. 6:7; 11:19). They begin to compromise in ways that causes them to turn to self-made idols for comfort and to calm their nerves and thereby negate their witness to their neighbours and broadcast to the world that everything they had previously told them about God being their Saviour and Lord was just a joke (2Cor. 3:2; 2Tim. 4:2).

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
First Peter 5:8

It's impossible not to be deeply moved at the moment by the plight of our brothers and sisters suffering serious attacks from ISIL ("IS", "ISIS"). It's bewildering to hear many of our political leaders displaying their ignorance about the religious fervour of those perpetrating these acts of evil as if their murderous rampage against Christians had nothing to do with their religion. But when I consider the extreme seriousness of these matters, I am disturbed to the core of my soul at the lack of required seriousness for those who claim that their lives have been bought by our Lord Christ Jesus. I'm disturbed that our Western Christianity is so comfortable, so easy, so casual, so compromised, that God in His mercy might choose a serious solution as we nearly saw in Sydney this week! As a student of Church History, I know the predictable pattern of God's response to a Church gone casual. And I for one take that history seriously!

Ps. Andrew

The World's 5 Biggest Problems

AND HOW WE MIGHT SOLVE THEM

March 25th 2014

The world is increasingly becoming a global village. We now have entire media networks dedicated to potentially delivering news as it happens from anywhere in the world. Sadly, those of us in the more affluent parts of the world usually don't get the most important news offered to us. Instead, we often get dished a diet of celebrity appearances, entertainment updates, political scandals, media commentary and sporting match results. To quote Neil Postman, despite the potential of our News media to inform us and even call us to action, we are "amusing ourselves to death."

There are several websites which list the survey results of what people think are the world's greatest problems. The major problem with such surveys is that they are largely Western and almost always fueled by how the participants have been informed by their media sources. Here's a summary and ranking of the word's greatest problems, and possible solutions to them.

The word "Fundamentalism" has come to mean those who think they are right and everyone else is wrong ("Us and them"). Added to this, Fundamentalism has come to mean that Fundamentalists feel not only justified in attacking those who disagree with them, but morally obliged to do so. In it's worst form it looks like murderous terrorism. In it's more subtle forms it looks like slander of those who disagree with them. Religious Fundamentalism adds the dimension of claiming that they alone are endorsed by God to carry out these acts of terror and oppression. Typically women and children suffer under the shadow of Religious Fundamentalism. Thus, girls are treated as objects (so-called 'female-circumcision' is often inflicted on these girls and even genital mutilation is performed - this was highlighted in the movie about Waris Dirie, Desert Flower), denied an education, 'married' off as young as 13 (when their bodies are incapable of the physical implications of marriage).

Fundamentalists are not prepared to defend their positions. Rather, they merely assert their positions are right and true and resent any challenges to them. Questioning is not allowed. Other views are maligned and misrepresented. This leads to hatred of others who do not agree with them.

Dialogue is the solution. To foster the kind of international dialogue necessary to counter religious Fundamentalism and the subsequent threat of terrorism, trade, tourism, and educational exchange programs are needed.

Christians are also prone to a kind of Fundamentalism. The solution to this is found in First Peter 3:15.

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 
First Peter 3:15

While dialogue is the starting point toward a solution, truth is the goal of such dialogue. This needs to happen at cultural, political and religious levels.

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