The recent events at Waffle House, in Toronto, in Dallas, and a host of other places are reminders that we among other things, are just not acting our age; willfully taking out our anger and aggression in ways that mirror the playground. You know the playground, “If he pushes you, then push him back, only harder”. The only thing missing from the playground is the strong dose of adult ferocity that accompanies a deeper cynicism with the life we endure.
I’ve been hurt, and now, I’m going to hurt you.
But there is a deeper problem here; one that occurred to me again as I march through the Psalter. We’re not acting like beings created by God and positioned just a little lower than God. That, after all, is not mere hyperbole or exaggeration; its biblical wisdom drawn from the pages of Psalm 8.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth,
Who have displayed your splendor above the heavens! From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength…
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained; What is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God (angels), And you crown him with glory and majesty!
As far as I can tell from reading this text, we are insignificant when compared with the universe as a whole, but extremely significant when placed in the creative hierarchy. We were created a little lower than the angels, which depending upon your particular translation correctly renders the term (Elohim) as God. So, we are created a little lower than God and clearly higher than the beasts we share the planet with. In fact, if one reads further, he must conclude that we (man) have been made to rule over the work of his (God’s) hands. I’m not making this up. It was Thomas Aquinas who argued for man’s mediating position between the angels (Elohim) and the beasts which are below.
While man is is a spirit/body being, angels have spirits but no bodies and animals have bodies but no spirits. Man has both body and spirit and fits nicely in between the realm of beast and the heavenlies. And consider this, when the writer puts it all to paper, he describes man as a little lower than heavenly beings (Boice), rather than a little higher than the beasts. It could have been stated differently but David chose to reflect upon the blessing of man looking upward to God (angels) rather than downward to the beasts.
Nice thought, David, but unfortunately man increasingly spends more time looking downward, behaving as one who seeks more to resemble the beasts of his worst nature rather than the image of God he received from his creator. And what’s more, that comment I made earlier about acting our age takes on even more meaning. Maybe we are “acting our age.” Here’s why.
Turns out in the 1950’s, that those most interested in detaching the culture from God’s authority turned to Sigmund Freud as their practitioner and threw off conformity to pre-war constraints in order to embrace a new freedom from all structures, realities, and expectations– and doing everything that we most desire. It was Freud after all who suggested that our inner desires were being repressed and that total freedom could only be realized by throwing off the oppressive regime, whether that be driven by God, the church or even the state. The youth culture of the 1960’s resurrected a “bohemian” lifestyle from the 17th century European Romanticism decrying the church for repressing people’s most authentic desires. One has only to observe the difference between the Reformers of the 17th century and the excessiveness of the Bohemian 19th century to understand the depth of the descent. Professor and writer Andrew Root writes,
It is interesting to think of the difference in Freedom here between Luther and Bohemian culture. For Luther, freedom was always bound too something else that transcends the self; But for the Bohemians, freedom is said to be free from all other structures, realities, and expectations in order to do what you most desire. (Root, Faith Formation in a Secular age, pg. 49)
Therefore, freed from the prison of societal structure and authority as a tool for the preservation of conformity, the youth and their parents of another generation pursued what they wanted and carried their dissatisfaction with duty and authority into the mainstream of public life.
And with that, the youth of the 60’s became the parents and grandparents of our present age; raised on consumerism and more concerned with being authentic in their desires than being correct in their thinking and doctrine; and with little responsibility to the authority structures represented by home, church, and lawfulness. In fact, we see no place for God because that cavern has been adequately filled by ourselves and our desire to be happy. Having thrown off all restraint, and without the guiding and guarding presence of a transcendent God, we are by all accounts, adrift on a sea of our own excrement.
What a wonderful creation we are– if only we could find our way back into God’s arms and his house, instead of hanging out with the bully down the street.
” … I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…” Phil 3:8
MJC.
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