1990 March/April issue Part 3

Virginity part 3

“How can a Christian single woman enter into the mystery of Christ and the church if she never experiences marriage?” is the question of a very thoughtful young woman.

   The gift of virginity, given to everyone to offer back to God for His use, is a priceless and irreplaceable gift. It can be offered in the pure sacrifice of marriage, or it can be offered in the sacrifice of life’s celibacy. Does this sound just too, too high and holy? But think for a moment- because the virgin has never known a man, she is free to concern herself wholly with the Lord’s affairs, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, “and her aim in life is to make herself holy, in body and spirit.” She keeps her heart as the Bride of Christ in a very special sense, and offers to the Heavenly Bridegroom alone all that she is and has. When she gives herself willingly to Him in love she has no need to justify herself to the world or to Christians who plague her with questions and suggestions. In a way not open to the married woman her daily “living sacrifices” is a powerful and humble witness, radiating love. I believe she may enter into the “mystery” more deeply than the rest of us.

1990 March/April issue Part 2

Virginity Part 2

But what shall I say to the women who write to me in such sorrow and perplexity? First of all, it is not our job to set about trying to coerce the men. They must answer to God, who made them the initiators. But a woman must answer to God about her acceptance of singleness, seeking to know Him in it and converting it into good by a peaceful YES, LORD! Rather than into real evil by a rebellious NO!
   At lunch today Lars said, “I’ll tell you what would change things fast- if all woman decided they would not ‘give out,’ I mean give men what they’re looking for but are unwilling to make a commitment for.”
   One young woman wrote in desperation, agreeing with what I believe is God’s order, “YEAH! That’s the way is should be!! Unfortunately, that’s not the way it is!”

1990 March/April issue Part 1

Virginity Part 1

My heart goes out to the countless women in their thirties and forties who write to me in real agony of soul because they are still single. There were two letters in this mornings mail. One said, “I am a Christian woman thirty years of age and I am facing the possibility of a life of singleness.” The other: “I am forty-one years old. I never dreamed I would not be married- I’ve been praying for a husband ever since I was sixteen. “
   This phenomenon, due in part, I suppose, to what demographers are calling “the postponed generaton” (the Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964) has reached catastrophic proportions. Men postpone marriage ten or twenty years beyond what used to be considered the marrying age. When the mirror tells them they’re fast aging they decide it’s time to settle down.

1990 January/February issue Part 5

"Inclusive" language

In many churches today, the hymns, prayers, and Scriptures are revised to make the language "inclusive." This means that whenever the generic word man is used it is deleted or replaced by a word like person, people, others, men and women, etc. A line of the grand old hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy"-"Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see" had been revised to read, "though the sinful human eye," which of course is a Manichean (see below) heresy. It stops me cold every time we sing it. And at Harvard University professors demand the use of "non-sexist" language such as (i'm not making this up) the "freshperson" class. It is mere ignorance of the meaning of generic which produces this outrageous mutilation of our glorious language, or is it a far more insidious and calculating determination to alter our vision of the nature god created when He designed man and woman? My brother Tom Howard explained his objection to "inclusive" language. Here's part of what he said:

"I use the traditional word 'men' because i am not a Manichean (a Persian system of belief which held that the soul is good and the body evil). The ancient edifice of language judges us, not we it. I am not prepared to leach away the almost sacramental solidity of words by expunging the rich and protohistoric 'men' and 'women' in favor of the eviscerate 'persons.' Remember, the word 'man' somehow bespeaks all of us mortals and sinners; and the word 'woman' bespeaks us as we receive  the approaches of the Divine. You and i must accept the mystery of our gender, and wear it with dignity and grace."

1990 January/February issue Part 4

The cesspool transfigured

My brother Dave wrote of the Lausanne II Congress in Manila that the highpoint was the brief testimony of a Chinese who had spent eighteen years in hard labor camp. 

   “Because he was a Christian they wanted to give him the worst job in the camp. So he was assigned to clean out the cesspool every day, as the Chinese cart off the waste as fertilizer. There was only one cesspool for the whole large camp, so it always overflowed on the ground around it. Therefore he had to literally wade through human excrement to get to the pool to empty it. But he said, ‘I rejoice at this, because I was able to get alone with the Lord in a way that was not possible for anyone else.’ He began to think of the cesspool and surrounding filth as his garden where, as he waded through the waste, he would sing, ‘I come to the garden alone.’ I used to think of that as a sickly sweet, rather sentimental song. But my whole concept of it changed as I heard him quote the whole song and apply it to his situation: ‘And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own; and the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known.’ Put that in the context of wading through sewage! Then he sang the whole song to us in Chinese, I doubt that there was a dry eye in the auditorium... I felt unworthy even to shake his hand.”

1990 January/February issue Part 3

Prayer and Feelings

   Our adversary the devil has many tricks to keep us from praying effectively. C.S. Lewis gives us a glimpse at some of them in his Screwtape Letters, in which an older demon is instructing a younger one in a few of those tricks:
   “Whenever they are attending to the enemy [i.e., God] Himself we are defeated. But there are some ways of preventing them of doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feelings; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment” (The Screwtape Letters, pp. 19-21).

1990 January/February issue Part 2

Little Things

When we were growing up our parents taught us, by both word and example, to pay attention to little things. If you do a thing at all, do it thoroughly- make the sheets really smooth on the bed, sweep all the corners and move all the chairs when you sweep the kitchen, roll the toothpaste tube neatly and put the cap back on, clean the hair out of your brush each time you use it, hang your towel straight on the rod, fold your napkin and put it into the silver ring before you leave the table, never wet your finger when you turn pages. They kept promises to us as faithfully as those they made to adults. They taught us to do the same. You didn’t accept an invitation to a party and then not turn up, or agree to help with the vacation Bible school and back out because a more interesting activity presented itself. The only financial debt my parents ever incurred was a mortgage on a house, which my father explained was in a special case because it was real estate which would always have value.