Recently, Paula Zahn, anchorwoman at CNN, has seemed terribly agitated about the fact that many Evangelicals and fundamentalists believe that—due to the current conflict in the Middle East—Christ may return soon and that Armageddon could happen in the near future. Ms. Zahn has broadcast several video features about high profile Bible teachers like John Hagee. Essentially, Zahn has seemed nonplussed that conservative Christians could actually believe that A) Christ will really return and B) that our current headlines are in some way connected to things foretold in the Bible. Her low-grade hysteria seems to me to be associated with the recent invention of a new term for Christian Bible literalists—Christianists. Journalist Andrew Sullivan is credited with inventing the word as a way of maintaining the media myth of moral equivalence between Islamic Jihadists and Christian conservatives. Only one little problem—Jihadists believe literally in the Koran, they get up from their worship and go blow up innocent people. Christian Bible conservatives get up from worship and go to the fellowship hall for a potluck. The elite media mavens can’t quite seem to get their heads around the difference.

As to the signs of the times, I have no idea whether or not Armageddon is immanent. I admit to being a Christian Bible conservative but I am with Jerry Falwell on this one—no one knows the day or hour. My guess is that the current Middle East conflict is another flash-point of the ongoing clash of civilizations between Islam and everyone else. Fox News heavy-hitter, Bill O’Reilly, is convinced that the American public, at large, has not come to grips with the fact that we are in World War III. I happen to agree with O’Reilly on both counts: we are in denial and we are in WWIII.

For those who struggle with the idea that we are in WWIII, I recommend a powerful and fascinating new book. Ralph Peters is a columnist for the New York Post. He has a reputation for clear and independent thinking. His latest book is “Never Quit the Fight.” His thesis is that faith and not political ideology is the dominant international issue of the 21st century. The 20th century was marked by the titanic struggle between political and economic ideologies. Western free-market democracy won that battle and now great religious ideas have moved from the back burner to boil over into worldwide conflict. Peters makes the case (as does Samuel Huntington in “Clash of Civilizations”) that the hot and cold wars of the 20th century were just a “blip” compared to the much longer and greater struggle between the major world faiths. He contends that the key issue now is “what does God want for humanity.” Islam has one answer to that question and it is Sharia—Islamic, all encompassing law—symbolized by the Burka.

Like it or not, as Peters points out, Islamic Jihadists, if they could, would push a button and annihilate the West. Whereas diplomacy, economic sanctions and bargaining were tools that could be used during the Cold War, they are totally useless against an implacable enemy that is religiously motivated. Unfortunately, most Americans and virtually all of Europe are still living in 1968 and hoping the UN can talk sense to Jihadists. Meanwhile, Jihadists want nothing more than to cut off heads with a butcher knife.

Bottom line: I’m thinking we are in for a long battle with Islamic Jihadists. Maybe this is Armageddon of a very different sort. The stakes are very high. Who has the answer, Muhammad or Christ? One thing I am sure of, we aren’t going to like it when Islamic Jihadists get the bomb.

You may not know that there is an ever widening gap between our economic growth and happiness. In the past 50 years we have experienced an explosion of personal income, the purchase of luxury and recreational goods, and the size of our homes yet without any corresponding increase in feelings of contentment. In other words, the gap is growing between our economic blessings and our feelings of satisfaction. The more we have, the less satisfied we think we are.

This situation has led to the development of a new sociological discipline with a number of books published on the subject of our discontent. British economist Richard Layard has written one of the most interesting and respected. His book “Happiness: Lessons From a New Science” delves deeply in to factors of our discontent. One of the biggest culprits is television. Layard recounts the amazing true-life story of the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan. Bhutan is an isolated kingdom in the Himalayans whose king, in 1998, decided to make it a national objective to increase its “gross national happiness.” Unfortunately, in 1999 the king allowed television into his country for the first time. The results are shocking. The people lapped up television consumption like thirsty puppies with devastating effects. There was nearly an immediate “sharp increase in family breakup, crime and drug-taking.”

What Layard and other social scientists conclude about television is that it demonstrates that our feelings of happiness do not so much depend on what we have but on how we feel our “stuff stacks up against the rest of the world, like the guy across the street.” Therefore, the people on television are another means of comparing our lives and possessions. Only, with television we are comparing ourselves with the glittering fantasy of make believe. A sure way to increase your dissatisfaction is to watch a lot of television.

Correspondingly, as Layard points out, “we all know one of the secrets of happiness is to be satisfied with what you have.” Also, social scientists have been surprised to discover that the traditional pathway to happiness still works. That pathway is a greater investment in those things that really do make us happy—“family and friends, meaningful work that we enjoy, community involvement, less getting and more giving.” How about that!

Aristotle, in the Rhetoric stated that happiness is, "a certain kind of activity of the soul expressing virtue." Happiness is nothing so cheap as a fleeting feeling or a passing fancy. It entails "a complete life," lived according to virtue and measured right up to its end.

My good buddy Aquinas wrote: “For imperfect happiness, such as can be had in this life, external goods are necessary, not as belonging to the essence of happiness, but by serving as instruments to happiness, which consists in an operation of virtue, as stated in Ethic. i, 13 (Aristotle’s work). For man needs in this life, the necessaries of the body, both for the operation of contemplative virtue, and for the operation of active virtue, for which latter he needs also many other things by means of which to perform its operations.”

Essentially, both Aristotle and Aquinas are saying that it is what we give and not what we get that makes us happy. It is how we use our “goods” to act virtuously and not how many consumer goods we have that will determine our level of happiness. Hmm…I think Jesus said something about this…how did it go?

Matthew 25:21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

The New York Times article on the front page of our local newspaper had the subtitle, “Evangelical pastor preaches sermons free of political views.” Of course, the subtitle is absolutely wrong, but I will get to that later. The story, you see, is about a Greg Boyd, pastor of a megachurch in the Minneapolis suburb of Maplewood, Minn. In fact, Greg is an acquaintance of mine and we are pastors in the same denomination. I owe to Greg a debt of gratitude. Because of him, I have become an amateur expert on Thomas Aquinas. In 1998-99 Greg Boyd was teaching at our denominational college/seminary in Minneapolis and caused a firestorm of controversy by taking the position that God cannot know certain things about the future. This theological position goes under the name of “Open Theology.” The “Openness” controversy threatened to tear our denomination apart. Ultimately, Greg was not expelled from his position and the denomination, while rejecting openness, did not take the hardliner’s position of re-writing our statement of faith to explicitly disenfranchise those who believed like Boyd. The upshot of this is that I dedicated my self to fully understanding God’s foreknowledge which led me to Thomas Aquinas. Long past the controversy, I am still hooked on medieval theology.

Boyd, never one to eschew controversy, is now the poster-boy for those who are uncomfortable with the so-called “religious right.” As I mentioned above, the subtitle of the New York Times article wrongly portrays Boyd as preaching sermons free of political views. This, in my opinion, is manifestly not true. Here is why. Contemporary politics, at least since the late 60s, are loaded with moral and religious issues. Being old enough to actually remember politics before 1968; I can say from personal awareness that there has been a huge fault-line that has developed pre and post the 1960s. Therefore, when Boyd excoriates Evangelical Christians for taking stands against public and politically codified immorality; he, himself is taking a political stance. Allow me to quote Boyd; the New York Times states:

“Boyd lambasted the ‘hypocrisy and pettiness’ of Christians who focus on ‘sexual issues’ like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson’s breast-revealing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. He said Christians these days were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public… ‘Those are two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act,’ he said. ‘And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed.’”

Actually, if you bother to read the New Testament you’ll probably find it pretty hard to avoid coming across Jesus saying some very tough things against sin, sexual immorality (even mental lust) and expressing His strong demand that his disciples openly and publicly declare their belief in Him and His message.

Boyd and others like Brian D. McLaren who is the guru of the “emerging church” movement, typically trot out the statement that “America wasn’t founded as a theocracy” as a way of pigeonholing conservative Christians as the equivalent of Islamic Jihadists. Personally, I find this sort of thinking childish, unsophisticated and disingenuous. I have never met a conservative Christian that wants to establish a Christian theocracy in America. In fact, because I run in Baptist circles, almost all of my friends are adamantly in favor of the separation of church and state as outlined in our Constitution. By the way, the First Amendment is in our Constitution largely because of the influence of Baptists. Additionally, I cannot understand how one can take Christian pride in the work of the great Evangelical abolitionists of the 19th century who helped bring an end to slavery (which both Boyd and McLaren do) and then disparage modern Evangelicals and Catholics who wage a public battle against the monstrous evil of abortion.

Like it or not, Christianity is a public religion. As opposed to New Age beliefs and classic religions such as Buddhism; Christianity is not just a private affair. Both Jesus and the Apostles demanded that Christians live in such a way that they gave witness to Christ’s lordship over every aspect of life. If Christianity had been strictly a private religion relegated to personal ritual and faith, that just did nice things for people, Christians would likely never or rarely have faced persecution. If Boyd finds contemporary Christians too dicey for his comfort level, he should read Polycarp’s testimony at his martyrdom. When was the last time you heard a Christian leader tell a public official that “Jesus is preparing your coffin.” That will scare you or put some Christian hair on your chest.

Pat Moynihan wrote in 1965: “From the wild Irish slums of the nineteenth-century Eastern seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring a stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos… [In such a society] crime, violence, unrest, unrestrained lashing out the whole social structure — these are not only to be expected, they are virtually inevitable.” Unfortunately, Senator Moynihan was scoffed at in 1965; however, he turned out to be a prophet. Now the chicken has come home to roost.

Nationally, seventy percent of youths incarcerated in state reform institutions come from single-parent or no-parent homes. A survey of juvenile delinquents in state custody in Wisconsin found that fewer than 1/6 came from intact families; over two-fifths were illegitimate. Additionally, if a single-parent family is in a neighborhood with a large number of other single-parent families, the odds of a fatherless boy becoming involved in crime are tripled. These findings are based on a study conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Now read Thomas Aquinas from the 13th century:

“It is clear that to bring up a child requires both the care of the mother who nourishes him and even more the care of the father to train and defend him and develop him in internal and external endowments.”

Shockingly, Aquinas is saying that in human parenting, fathers are more important than mothers. Okay, everyone take a deep breath and try to stay calm—I am not mommy bashing. Please understand that Aquinas means this from the perspective of the good of mankind and not necessarily in each particular situation. Certainly, there are fathers that are a danger to children and need to be removed from homes. However, this does not change the truth (based in the nature of things) that fathers are more important in childrearing than are mothers--for the good of the species. Here is a quick way to validate this idea. At night drive into any large urban center in America (say Camden, NJ or Detroit, MI) where there is a high percentage of out-of-wedlock births. Unlock your car, and begin to walk around. You will quickly understand what I am suggesting.

The point is, fathers “develop” the “internal and external endowments” of children, particularly male children. If, for instance, a boy is raised without a father and he lives in a neighborhood without fathers, he will very likely grow up lacking internal restraints on his sexual and violent passions. He will also lack a father to prepare him for the job market and provide an entrée into the world of work--ergo, gangs and crime. In short, I am not the first person to suggest that fatherlessness leads to crime. A society with a high percentage of promiscuity and out-of-wedlock births is asking for its own destruction. Or as Pat Moynihan said, “that community asks for and gets chaos.” Promiscuity is against the nature of mankind.

Post-modern culture is addicted to semantic senility. We love bureaucratese, obfuscation, indecision, and carefully padded prevarication. We babble on in the hope that by saying enough we will say something right. On the other hand, medieval culture was obsessed with dense intellectualization. Medieval culture gave us natural law whereas postmodernism has given us relativism. The natural law, to put it bluntly, is the description of the way things are. Let’s explore an example.

We note that human children are the most vulnerable of all mammals at birth. It takes years for a human child to be able to sustain itself independent of its parents. Meanwhile, a fox-trotting foal (young horse) begins its training a week to 10 days after birth! Imagine trying to train a 10-day old baby to run. From the nature of things we see that it takes humans 15-25 years to be prepared to survive independently. From this we extrapolate that parenting is extremely important for the survival of humans. We also see from nature that skills such as language, food gathering, cooperation and a huge host of other things are necessarily passed on from human parents to their children. Consequently, we reason that it is natural for parents to educate their children.

We observe that some animals such as cats do not need both male and female to care and train their young. Consequently, there is a very weak bond—if any—between “fluffy” the cat and her male suitors. Cats by nature are sexually promiscuous. We recognize this in a backhanded way by calling promiscuous people “alley cats.” However, because of the long and intense period of care that is necessary for a human child, we see that both male and female are normally needed in order to secure a safe passage of a child into adulthood. Therefore it is normal for the human male and female to have a very strong and intense bond between them. We call this marriage. This is natural because it is derived from the necessities of human survival.

In postmodern culture we are used to people babbling on about how unimportant the “traditional” family or marriage or fathers are. This is semantic senility. Read this from Thomas Aquinas who lived in an era that was much closer to nature:

“It is clear that to bring up a child requires both the care of the mother who nourishes him and even more the care of the father to train and defend him and to develop him in internal and external endowments. Therefore promiscuity is contrary to the nature of man.” (Summa II, Q. 154, A. 2)

Amazing, huh? Thomas makes the case, based on way things are, that sexual promiscuity violates the nature of mankind, male and female parents are normally necessary, and that the father is even more important in the care of the young than the mother. Whatever you do, do not let the Massachusetts Supreme Court, NOW or the ACLU read this—they may all have a stroke on the spot.