Archive for January, 2012

Too Many Choices

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Too Many Choices

Last week I took my life companion, my lover, my wife, out to lunch. She deserved it—it was her 60th birthday.

Now that was a laudable enterprise.  Lunch (a cheaper option than dinner parsimonious husbands take note) is an annual birthday gift to my deserving wife of 35 years .  .  .but .  .  . I know this woman. We were going to Fatty Pattys, where only the name was objectionable—the cuisine was terrific.

Every year, I choose a modest, but tasty option but aways—always!—a place that is miles away from a Ross, TJMaxx, or Marshalls.  I assiduously avoid these snake pits on ordinary days, but, with my natural, judicious caution engendered by my wife’s uncharacteristic élan connected with a birthday celebration ardor burning brightly,  this day above all others demanded that I demonstrate scrupulous vigilance.

In fact, I deliberately chose the most circuitous route that I could. I knew it would take me away from what must be Dante’s 8 level of Hell.  For I know, no matter what our time frame is, no matter what our priorities, no matter what the urgency of our task is, Karen cannot resist a “quick” stop at one of these commercial enterprises.

11:50 A.M.  We will easily make it to lunch by 12 Noon.

As fate would have it, the gods did not smile on me this day. Or my Garmin lady hates me.  My Garmin (which hasn’t been updated since George W. Bush was president) malevolently, as if to neglect the old Garmin girl with her sexy voice was a cardinal sin, took me past a Ross Dress For Less Department Store.

Quickly I spied the abominable temptation before my birthday girl saw it.

“Sweetie, what is that bird I see in the sky!  Look quick! No, look in the sky! Is it a hawk?” I forlornly pleaded.

But it was too late. The dastardly deed had been done. That Garmin hussy!

“Jim, stop! I just need to buy one thing.”

Like Hannibal  when he entered the Po Valley after languishing in the Alps, like Caleb and Joshua when they looked out over the Promised Land, Karen’s beautiful brown eyes glowed at the prospect of purchasing all those “bargains.”

A “bargain” to Karen, my inveterate shopper, is a 80% discounted price tag. Her desire for good bargains was a genuine addiction, an obsession.  Like a cocaine addict, once she tasted a 40% discount, she had to have a 60% discount or more. Much more. And her sympathy for those poor souls who paid full price approached epic proportions. She is blessed, and she knew it, with an eye for bargains and wondered how any day in the year could be better than the day after Christmas.

At first the internet discombobulated my apple blossom. She held her bargains in her hand, like gold, and examined them as closely as if she was buying a head of lettuce in the grocery story.  Bargains were there to find, to touch, and their penultimate value first had to be ascertained, and that only by the “touch.” She could not do that on the internet, so, she purposed never to buy on the  internet— she staged a one woman rebellion of sorts against that type buying.   And let me tell you from experience, my friends, do not underestimate my wife. Google.com watch out!

But, never, have I seen my sagacious Karen buy a piece of clothing at full price.

I remember once I nobly bought a full price item of clothing for her at Dillard for her Christmas present and she acted like I had bought Twinkies home from the grocery story.  Or as if I had shopped at an Adult store or something.

But, weary reader, my Godly, beautiful, now a year older, life companion, sweetheart was crossing the Jordan.  Ross Dress of Less loomed over the horizon.  The unpretentious blue white sign urging my princess onward toward her Shangri La.

I on the other hand was starring down on the Promised Land like old Moses sat on Mount Pisgah except that while Moses very much wanted to enter the Promised Land I would rather eat dirt than shop at Ross Dress for Less Department Store, even with my wife.

With one final plea, with one forlorn cry, I, the dedicated taciturn wimp, “Honey, dear, I will buy you a wonderful seafood lunch at Pattys.”

Karen did not bite the bait.

A sidebar. In Karen’s defense, she laconically has pointed out to me that she does not particularly enjoy shopping either.  That is the only lie I can remember my wife ever telling! She reminds me that I have never bought a stitch of clothes for myself in my entire life (which is true) and if she doesn’t do it no one will (since my mother is dead).  So I am appropriately grateful on occasion. Sort of.

“You don’t have to join me in the store, “ Karen sweetly offered.

Which she really meant, but would never say, “Listen dope.  It is my birthday.  Turn off Rush Limbaugh and join me in women’s lingerie.”

I am reminded of Milton’s timeless words, “The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.” So, with only an once of prompting by the Holy Spirit (Jim, honor your dear wife) and a ton of conscience prompting (Jim, you must do this thing or Karen will kill you!) with intrepid boldness I entered Ross Dress for Less Department Store only a few paces behind my wife.

Rest at ease, dear readers. This valedictorian address is almost over!

Well, of course Karen found exactly what she wanted at Ross. But, of course, we can never be sure that it won’t be cheaper at T J Maxx, another den of iniquity.

So we went there.

That is one of the problems with living in the 21st century.  We have too many choices. Social psychologists Sheena Iyengar, PhD, a management professor at Columbia University Business School, and Mark Lepper, PhD, a psychology professor at Stanford University, demonstrate the downside of excessive choice. In a 2000 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the team showed that when shoppers are given the option of choosing among smaller and larger assortments of jam, they show more interest in the larger assortment. But when it comes time to pick just one, they’re 10 times more likely to make a purchase if they choose among six rather than among 24 flavors of jam.

Which is exactly the point I made to Karen: just buy the darn thing at Ross and let’s go to lunch.

12:30 and we are farther away from Fatty Pattys than ever.

To accelerate the narrative, however, I will summarize. T. J. Maxx did have the same blouse at a cheaper price but it was the wrong size. Marshall # 1 had the same blouse but with long sleeves.  Marshall #2 had the same blouse but with no sleeves. Ross # 2 (yes, they actually have these things within 5 miles of each other!) we found a different blouse but the same color and at a cheaper price.  This brought renewed optimism and ardor in my lovely shopper.  We were heading to a Chico Outlet, not a first string, preferred shopping destination, but Karen heard that they were having a huge sale.  She was wrong.

3:30 and I was ready to eat at Burger King or anywhere else and it appeared we had exhausted our resources. But, as I said, do not underestimate my wife.

You know, parenthetically, relationships may partly depend on looking for things we never find.  That might be the best thing in life.  I remember that my dad and I looked for blue birds all his life until he died.  We never found them but enjoyed the looking. I now have a couple of families of blue birds living in my Pennsylvania farm backyard.

We never found the white blouse we wanted—by the time we returned to Ross Dress for Less #1 it was gone.  By the time we got to Fatty Pattys it was time for supper.  And Fatty Pattys does not serve supper.

So we ate at an expensive Thai restaurant.  But Karen is worth it.

Then we stopped at Walmart on the way home and shopped some more.

 

 

A Creed Outworn

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

A Creed Outworn

Last week I told you that we all make our decisions from our worldviews. A worldview helps us make the critical decisions, which will shape our future.  I want to talk to you this week about what the vision, mission, and purpose of CHEL (Christian Home Educators Lifeline).  The Christian Home Educators Lifeline (CHEL) exists to love and  to glorify God, to help fulfill the Great Commission,  to affirm,  to encourage, to equip, and to empower parents and teachers to educate  and to disciple their students with excellence.  We are not merely a home school, or any school support resource—we want to participate, even in a modest way, in the coming revival/renewal we see coming to this nation!

This fall, 2011, I received my latest edition of my alumni magazine Harvard Divinity Today, Vol. 7, Number 3. I must admit reading the Today is not exactly the highest priority to this “alumni” who really reserves his allegiance to Gordon Conwell Seminary, but something caught my eye.  “HDS [Harvard Divinity School] to Expand Program in Buddhist Ministry Studies” caught my eye.  Silly me—I thought John Harvard bequeathed money in 1636 to found Harvard to prepare “men for Christian ministry.”  Can you imagine what John Harvard would say if he knew his endowment spawned a special Buddhist ministry program? Oh my.

            But that is only half of it.  Buddhism—a sort of higher consciousness atheism—is no religion at all.  It has no formal priesthood, no serious understanding of soteriology (salvation) or redemption.  Buddhism is pretentious humanism; it has no serious belief in the supernatural.  It is a banana split of human effort but hardly a sugar cone of metaphysical reality.  No really ministry can occur without evoking the presence of a reality outside human existence, so, really, “Buddhism ministry” is an oxymoron.

            Well, that is one reason CHEL (Christian Home Educators Lifeline) exists.  2012 religious America invests a lot of resources—a generous donor gave $2,500,000–to enable Harvard to do something that cannot be done—equip Buddhists to do ministry. But isn’t that the sign of the times. An erstwhile classmate of mine, 150 years ago, now deceased of course, Ralph Waldo Emerson, hardly a champion of Christian orthodoxy, but very much a vintage Harvard Divinity School man, speaking to the 1838 HDS senior class, in Divinity Hall, down the hall from where I lived, warned “One would rather be `A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,’ than to be defrauded of his manly right in coming into nature, and finding not names and places, not land and professions, but even virtue and truth foreclosed and monopolized.” Virtue and truth are rarely discussed in 2012 America.

            But virtue and truth are very important to Christian Home Educators Lifeline.

What really matters to CHEL? What is our vision? What are our core values?

  • The family, whether it is with a single parent, or two, is the God breathed entity that God has ordained to nurture, to equip, to challenge this new generation.

  • We value life and abhor any political or social policy that seeks to take life away.

 

  • We encourage parents to raise a generation who is not afraid to be overcomers in an increasingly hostile culture.

 

  • We urge families neither to conform to, nor to run from, secular culture but to transform this culture in the name of Christ.

 

  • Like Deborah’s generation in Judges 5:11, we seek to share Christ at the watering holes–cultural creating centers of this society.

 

  • We hope to establish an alternative culture/society of hope to this society of hopelessness so that His Kingdom might come on this earth as it is in Heaven.

One final note.  Education is the most personal of  human experiences and belongs first to the Creator God, and then to his designated authority. Therefore, CHEL strongly advocates and encourages parental input into education.  CHEL passionately encourages full time home education but understands that public and private education, in some cases, is necessary, and even desirable.  We therefore support all education endeavors!

            Finally I need to say one more thing.  CHEL is not interested in retreated from Post-Modern, secular, Post-Christian American culture. We are afraid of no worldview.  We will not pretend we serve any God but the awesome, omnipotent God we serve!  We are servants; we will die daily for one another.  But we will not participate in the culture of fear that is so pervasive in our nation. We intend to, and we encourage you,  neither to conform to, nor to run from, secular culture, but to transform this culture in the name of Christ. The newsletter encourages parents to raise a generation who are overcomers in an increasingly hostile culture. The newsletter is part of establishing a culture of hope and confidence so that Christ’s Kingdom might come on this earth as it is in heaven.

In the months and years ahead we appreciate your prayers and support!

 

Jim Stobaugh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Creed Outworn

Last week I told you that we all make our decisions from our worldviews. A worldview helps us make the critical decisions, which will shape our future.  I want to talk to you this week about what the vision, mission, and purpose of CHEL (Christian Home Educators Lifeline).  The Christian Home Educators Lifeline (CHEL) exists to love and  to glorify God, to help fulfill the Great Commission,  to affirm,  to encourage, to equip, and to empower parents and teachers to educate  and to disciple their students with excellence.  We are not merely a home school, or any school support resource—we want to participate, even in a modest way, in the coming revival/renewal we see coming to this nation!

This fall, 2011, I received my latest edition of my alumni magazine Harvard Divinity Today, Vol. 7, Number 3. I must admit reading the Today is not exactly the highest priority to this “alumni” who really reserves his allegiance to Gordon Conwell Seminary, but something caught my eye.  “HDS [Harvard Divinity School] to Expand Program in Buddhist Ministry Studies” caught my eye.  Silly me—I thought John Harvard bequeathed money in 1636 to found Harvard to prepare “men for Christian ministry.”  Can you imagine what John Harvard would say if he knew his endowment spawned a special Buddhist ministry program? Oh my.

            But that is only half of it.  Buddhism—a sort of higher consciousness atheism—is no religion at all.  It has no formal priesthood, no serious understanding of soteriology (salvation) or redemption.  Buddhism is pretentious humanism; it has no serious belief in the supernatural.  It is a banana split of human effort but hardly a sugar cone of metaphysical reality.  No really ministry can occur without evoking the presence of a reality outside human existence, so, really, “Buddhism ministry” is an oxymoron.

            Well, that is one reason CHEL (Christian Home Educators Lifeline) exists.  2012 religious America invests a lot of resources—a generous donor gave $2,500,000–to enable Harvard to do something that cannot be done—equip Buddhists to do ministry. But isn’t that the sign of the times. An erstwhile classmate of mine, 150 years ago, now deceased of course, Ralph Waldo Emerson, hardly a champion of Christian orthodoxy, but very much a vintage Harvard Divinity School man, speaking to the 1838 HDS senior class, in Divinity Hall, down the hall from where I lived, warned “One would rather be `A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,’ than to be defrauded of his manly right in coming into nature, and finding not names and places, not land and professions, but even virtue and truth foreclosed and monopolized.” Virtue and truth are rarely discussed in 2012 America.

            But virtue and truth are very important to Christian Home Educators Lifeline.

What really matters to CHEL? What is our vision? What are our core values?

  • The family, whether it is with a single parent, or two, is the God breathed entity that God has ordained to nurture, to equip, to challenge this new generation.

  • We value life and abhor any political or social policy that seeks to take life away.

 

  • We encourage parents to raise a generation who is not afraid to be overcomers in an increasingly hostile culture.

 

  • We urge families neither to conform to, nor to run from, secular culture but to transform this culture in the name of Christ.

 

  • Like Deborah’s generation in Judges 5:11, we seek to share Christ at the watering holes–cultural creating centers of this society.

 

  • We hope to establish an alternative culture/society of hope to this society of hopelessness so that His Kingdom might come on this earth as it is in Heaven.

One final note.  Education is the most personal of  human experiences and belongs first to the Creator God, and then to his designated authority. Therefore, CHEL strongly advocates and encourages parental input into education.  CHEL passionately encourages full time home education but understands that public and private education, in some cases, is necessary, and even desirable.  We therefore support all education endeavors!

            Finally I need to say one more thing.  CHEL is not interested in retreated from Post-Modern, secular, Post-Christian American culture. We are afraid of no worldview.  We will not pretend we serve any God but the awesome, omnipotent God we serve!  We are servants; we will die daily for one another.  But we will not participate in the culture of fear that is so pervasive in our nation. We intend to, and we encourage you,  neither to conform to, nor to run from, secular culture, but to transform this culture in the name of Christ. The newsletter encourages parents to raise a generation who are overcomers in an increasingly hostile culture. The newsletter is part of establishing a culture of hope and confidence so that Christ’s Kingdom might come on this earth as it is in heaven.

In the months and years ahead we appreciate your prayers and support!

 

Jim Stobaugh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moral Man, Immoral Society

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Moral Man, Immoral Society

 

For the first eight years of my life I stood in front of an ancient oak tree in front of my family home on South Highway, McGehee, Arkansas, and caught a big yellow school bus to McGehee Elementary School.  My buddies, Craig Towles and Pip Runyan, wickedly violated school bus riding etiquette and abandoned their boring bus stop two doors down and joined me so that we could surreptitiously deposit acorns AKA pretend “soldiers” in the middle of the road to be squashed by speeding autos AKA pretend German Panzer Tanks. The old oak tree liberally deposited brave acorn Wehrmacht  African Korps recruits on the crab grass carpet that my grandmother had futilely tried to replace with St. Augustine grass.

We made the most of the oak’s munificence.  Those little buggers made a wonderful chartreuse stain on the already steaming South Highway concrete crown. This was innocent enough—no one would miss a few acorns from a stupid oak tree—but before long, you guessed it, we—more precisely Pip—who was always full of errant but terribly interesting pretend scenarios—that boy always worried Craig and me—suggested that we abandon the acorns and started throwing grenades AKA rocks at passing cars (Pip will deny this of course but you must corroborate this story with Craig).  We finally hit (blew up) a few Tiger Tanks and got into big trouble (were captured by the enemy—the Gestapo—and were thoroughly punished–our parents beat the crap out of us).

The truth is Jimmy, Craig, Pip alone would not do such a depraved thing (well maybe Pip would do it—he tortured cats too).  In a group, together,  however, such a thing not only was plausible, it was downright desirable. Jimmy, Craig, and Pip did things Jimmy or Craig or Pip would never do alone. In a crowd we did things we would not do as individuals.

A Christian theologian named Reinhold Neibuhr said as much in a book he wrote called Moral Man and Immoral Society. Niebuhr insisted that public politics is concerned with correcting, balancing as it were, the sinfulness of human nature, that is, the self-centeredness of individuals and groups. But he understood that while little boys, and political despots might behave nicely if they are alone, in groups, they became monsters. He suggested that moral men became immoral men when they were together in a social group.

Niebuhr fervently hoped that a person would experience redemption and thereby redeem his society by a Hegelian, reductionist struggle with sinfulness. Hegel said, in short, that folks changed as they struggled with life.  Hegel hoped that people came through a struggle, hard times, as better people. Just like my mother hoped that my whipping for throwing the rocks with Craig and Pip would cause me to be a better person too.  In my case, the mental dissonance, combined with physical pain, worked!  I have never thrown rocks at cars since then. I still relieve myself outside behind another oak tree once in a while—another terrible thing that Pip and Craig taught me to do and my fussy mother told me not to do—but, hey, I live on  a farm!  But I have never thrown rocks at cars.

Niebuhr advanced the thesis that what the individual is able to achieve singly

cannot be a possibility for social groups. He believed that Jimmy Stobaugh would be a good boy alone but inevitably, without a doubt, once he was with Craig and Pip or his other buddies he would indulge in chicanery.  It was inevitable.  Thus, Niebuhr believed in moral individuals and immoral societies or groups. He called it “the herd mentality.”

In other words, Niebuhr correctly saw the immorality of systems in society (e.g., social welfare) and its futile attempts to ameliorate individuals and their needs through systemic interventions. In other words, Niebuhr was not naïve — he knew that systems and cultures change and individual hearts change. But it was much harder to convince a group to change than an individual.

Niebuhr warned that one should try to change individual hearts first, but, in a last resort, power could and should be used to stop societies from harming its members and then other societies.

Once Craig and I were melting down Mr. Chilcoat’s discarded tar shingles to make spears. We were full of bad ideas but they always exhibited élan and ingenuity.  We carefully placed the tar shingles in empty discarded metal pork and bean cans sitting in a roaring fire.  Once the tar was bubbling we placed old broom handles in the mixture and, once the broom handles were removed, and the tar somewhat cooled, we place stone heads–carefully chiseled as surrogate Indian spear heads–into the warm tar.  Thus, we created a alligator killing weapon that we used to kill pretend reptiles in Mrs. Beck’s water garden.

My dad, observing our behavior, and, furthermore, discerning the obvious dangers of placing boiling tar and eight year old boys in the same vicinity, prophetically warned, “Jimmy, stop or you will burn yourself badly.”

Well, he was right.  Within the next hour I spilled burning tar on my right hand causing painful third degree burns.  I spent the rest of the day in Dr. Parker’s waiting room.  Even looking at lovely Jane Parker, Dr. Parker’s oldest daughter, my first heartthrob, only to be replaced by perennial goddess Jamie Fraser the following year, could not mitigate the pain.  It was a Sunday afternoon and Jane had accompanied her dad to his office, which was normally closed.  I longingly lobbied for curative sympathy from this exquisite beauty but Jane, always the pragmatist, simply thought I was stupid and resented that her dad had to waste his time on such a dope.

The thing is, I always wondered, why didn’t my dad STOP me from burning Mr. Chilcoat’s roof shingles and, more pointedly, from burning to the third degree his accident prone, stupid middle son’s hand? What if I had killed myself or something?  I imagined Dad saying, “Well Jimmys dead—I told him it was going to happen.” Or “Well, now what am I going to do—there is no one to take the trash out in the morning!”  My dad would have been sorry, I was convinced if the fates of burning tar had snatched me from this world

Or, worse, what if I hurt Craig—something I was always doing.  Poor Craig, more times than not, got hurt more often by my dim-witted choices than I did.  Craig got four stitches in his chin the next year when I caught his face with an army surplus shovel as we dug fox holes to escape the inevitable Japanese Banzai charge that would be visited on us at Guadalcanal. Didn’t Dad at least want to protect poor Craig?  It would have been pretty embarrassing to tell Mom, and Mrs. Towles, “Sorry to tell you—Jimmy and Craig were killed while making tar spears to kill pretend alligators in Mrs. Beck’s water garden.” Pathetic parenting.

I once asked Dad and Dad with an iconic grin responded, “Jimmy, even at age eight, you manifested an obduracy that I could not overcome. In the presence of Craig, in order to maintain your pride, I knew you would never listen to me.  You needed to experience the consequences of your actions before you would stop the action.”

Especially as I look down right now, as I type this digital magazine, and I look at my scarred right hand I realize my sagacious father was right.

Dad’s point was, individuals may be sincere in their understanding about several issues. In fact, they may be right about some issues. But they are wrong,

too. But when that group gains political hegemony, it can lose focus and direction and can do immoral things—like throwing rocks at cars—and stupid things—like making tar spears.

Individuals can be moral in purpose and in actions. But combining a

bunch of individuals into a coercive group can cause the group to become immoral. For example, Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was initially a pretty good thing for Germany. However, as he gained power, the good was replaced by the bad. This may not be inevitable, but it happens so often that we should  be cautious in giving so much power to groups. As an interesting sidebar, Niebuhr is directly contradicting the liberal Dewey who applauded the notion that the community, or larger society, created the greater good.

The answer to this apparent contradiction is, of course the Gospel.  Societies and groups change as individuals change. Niebuhr stressed the role of the Holy Spirit (what he calls the “religious imagination”). In a sense the group remained moral because the individuals in that society answer to a “higher power,” not to the coercion of the group or to the agenda of the group. Dietrich Bonheoffer, a German

World War II martyr, for example, was perhaps the most patriotic of Germans because he loved his God and his country enough to obey God and His Word above

all persons. This was the only way, Bonheoffer understood, that his nation could be moral and right before the God he served. Unfortunately, he was a lone voice in

the wilderness!

We live today in a world that is full of the tyranny of the majority.  The world tells us to relax, be happy and do what is right in our own eyes.  We do things as a group we would never do as individuals.  But judgment comes not to groups but to individuals!

The truth, then, is change—real change—is a “God” thing.  Only God can really change persons.  And as he changes persons, families, then he will change communities and nations. Christian Home Educators Lifeline believes this with all our heart and anxiously wait for God to change our individual hearts, then our nation, and then the world. For the time we have left, with all the effort we have, CHEL wishes to do exactly that: share the Gospel with one person at a time so that the world will change and God’s Kingdom will come on this Earth as it is in Heaven!

 

Jim Stobaugh

Happy Birthday Wife!

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Prom Night

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

In the spring of 1971, during my last year in high school, I was confronted with a metaphysical dilemma that summarizes the paradox facing all human beings . . .

Allegedly I was a Vanderbilt bound smart aleck but, secretly, I desperately wanted to go to the University of Arkansas, like my girl friend, Martha Lynn, and marry when I was 17 ½ .  This was the apex of the southern Arkansas pantheon—being a Razorback and attending school with one’s sweet heart. Prom night reminded me, again, that while Rick Sammons could be a Boll Weevil and my brother—another borderline nerd—could be a Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech, I was burdened with being a “Vanderbilt Commodore.”

Geez!

The fact is, I perennially suffered from high school prom phobia.  Besides the fact that I abhorred dancing, I also dreaded the obligatory rituals that surrounded Prom night. On prom night, it was expected that one was to stay out all night and do wicked things with one’s girl friend/ boy friend or something like that.  My friend Ray and I had successfully avoided the life scaring scorn surrounding prom avoidance by escaping to his hunting camp, a modest metal building across the levee.  But my buddy was smitten this year and had his own girl friend.  Likewise, this year, as I mentioned, I had a girl friend too.

It is no easy thing to be a nerd heading to Vanderbilt University, and possibly Harvard Graduate School.  This cooled any ardor I could muster and my social status stock was at an all time low.  I mean, my reputation was at rock bottom.  In the unforgiving southern Arkansas social realm, I was somewhere north of a leper and south of a northerner.  My fate promised another year of social isolation.

Thus, my girl friend and my already tarnished reputation demanded that this year I was to stay out all night. I just had to.

It was no easy task.  I have always enjoyed going to sleep around 9 PM CST so the notion of staying up all night seemed impossible.

There was some precedence. For fiscal reasons mostly, and because, honestly, there was a definite enervated nightlife in southern Arkansas, we would spend hours “parking” with our girl friends.  It worked like this: the couple would find some obscure corn field, or my personal favorite, a road next to the Mississippi River, and would sit and talk and allegedly would do other things—although I never did.  No, really, ask Martha Lynn—or, perhaps, given my handicap—Vanderbilt and Harvard notwithstanding—you really do believe me!

A complicating incident occurred, however, that changed everything.

In March, 1971, I made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ.   I invited Him into my life.  Cornered, and then conquered by Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  I could no longer deny, could not escape, the fact that God loved me so much that He sent his only Begotten Son (John 3:16) and, as if He had not done enough, He died for my sins on the Cross at Calvary.  This was an incorporeal, metaphysical reality I could not escape!  Yes, I was captured by the love of God!

No, I had a problem.  On one had, I had schemed to do all sorts of “wicked” things on Prom Night.  It was expected.  It was necessary. It was my corporeal reality.  Now, I had to consider an agenda, a world, which I could not see, but had more influence on me than the world I could see!

I was experienced, for the first time, a worldview battle. A worldview is a way that we relate to, and responds from a philosophical position that we embrace as our own.  Worldview is a framework that ties everything together, that allows us to understand society, the world, and our place in it.

A worldview helps us make the critical decisions, which will shape our future.  A worldview colors all our decisions and all our artistic creations.  In the first Star Wars movie (1977), for instance, Luke Skywalker clearly values a Judeo-Christian code of ethics.  That does not mean that he is a believing Christian–indeed he is not–but he does uphold and fight for a moral world.   Darth Vader, on the other hand, represents chaos and amoral behavior.  He does whatever it takes to advance the Emperor’s agenda, regardless of whom he hurts or what rule he breaks. You see, there are basically two worldview roots, two “worlds” from which we draw our decisions and realities. One originated with Aristotle who argues that the empirical world is primary.  Thus, if one wants to advance knowledge one has to learn more about the world.  Another root originated with Plato (and later with the Apostle Paul) who argues that the unseen world is primary. In Plato’s case, that meant that if one wishes to understand the world he studies the gods.  In our case, we agree with Plato to the extent that we believe that God–who cannot be seen, measured–is in fact more real than the world.

Now, in my newfound freedom in Christ, I was faced with a metaphysical dilemma: Do I make decisions according to an abstract reality, like the Word of God? Or do I succumb to societal standards? Who/what will be my primary worldview?  Prom Night, in bold relief, caused me to make a choice. This choice is the choice all people must make in their lives. I went to the Prom (still hate those things!) but did nothing that would dishonor our Lord.