Ancient Gods and cardboard heroes.

ERIC MASCALL, the Anglican theologian, once commented that it is not life's horrors that make a mockery of human existence, but rather its beauties. In other words, in the very moments when we experience the greatest human joy or sense the most sublime beauty, we also know that that joy will pass and that beauty will fade; we cannot hold them. We cannot hold them, that is, unless the Bible and the Gospel is contains are true, and it really is possible, as the Psalmist says, to "dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (Psalm 23:6). If we cannot hold on to human joy and earthly beauty, because--as Isaiah writes--"All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field" (Isaiah 40:6), then it is probably better to forget altogether about earthly beauty and human virtue. Let life appear as ugly as possible, and then we will not be mocked by the realization that it is fading and that we cannot hold on to it.

Christian and others have tried to understand why it is that so much popular music wallows in ugliness, in literal filth, in all that is sordid and even Satanic. KISS, Black Sabbath, and Ozzy Osbourne's Speak of the Devil, as well as countless other hard-rock, acid-rock, and heavy-metal productions, offer examples quite literally ad nauseam. Many Christians (although by no means all) vigorously oppose rock music and the whole rock culture because they find that it perverts the young and creates a climate of unbelief. It is no doubt absolutely true that rock music has a corrupting influence on young people (and not only on the young, although they are most vulnerable to it). But it would be more correct to say not that it creates unbelief, but that it is created by unbelief.

There is much that is beautiful, noble, moral, altruistic, and virtuous even in our fallen world and among fallen men and women. Almost every generation of manking has produced high ideals of virtue, beauty, and truth, and has held them up to the young as patterns to be followed, goals to be sought. Our own post-World War II Western, "Christian" civilization is virtually unique in destroying ideals and in presenting the young not with heroic examples but with deliberately and aggressively degenerate ones. In the field of music and entertainment, this type of thing may be explained as being simply a sure-fire way to make immense profits. But it is not only the profit motive that is at work. This is shown by the fact that our educational system has also begun to confornt the young, in a systematic way, with bigger and worse samples of what is sordid, degenerate, and the very opposite of inspiring. Americans who grew up in the 1950s and earlier were raised on inspiring, heroic accounts of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps King Arthur, William Tell, Joan of Arc, and other less recent heroes and heroines as well. Often these accounts were prettied up a bit. Blemishes were removed and good qualities exaggerated. But today the opposite is true. "Revisionist" history is not limited to the universities. In the first place, in an effort to be contemporary and relevant, even grade schools may spend more time with Elvis Presley than with Abraham Lincoln. And when heroes of the past are presented, it is not unusual to spend more time on their faults and blemishes than on their good qualities. What little attention is given is certainly far from adequate to compete with the fascination of the entertainment world.

Our culture is still nominally theistic, even Christian. But in fact the society no longer believes in God. As Francis Schaeffer began to proclaim thirty-odd years ago, the Christian base is gone. Individuals still believe, of course, and there are many congregations of deeply committed Christians. But society as a whole has lost its vision of the "house of the Lord." The fascination with depraved sex, with sadistic violence, with the occult, and even with Satan himself the characterizes much modern "culture" can be seen, in a way, as a kind of protracted temper tantrum, like that of a child suddenly told that Santa Claus will not bring anything this Christmas. If there is no God, if there is no eternal life, then this present life is meaningless. Such little bits of joy, beauty, and virtue as we can create and build into it are simply foolishness and self-deception. If that's the situation, then we hate it, and to show that we hate it, we'll make it just as horrible, ugly, and disgusting as we can. That way, at least we won't be deceiving ourselves.

In other words, the climate of unbelief has created the culture of corruption. Dallas and Dynasty make sense only in a world in which there is no thought of God, of justice, be revived. Their beauty, even with their flaws, is lost as a real force in human lives (although we can still admire them at a distance, like statues in a museum of ancient art). The Gospel is real, and proved far too strong for the gods and heroes of mythology. We can no longer believe in them, nor should we--even though we may learn something thing from them. The Gospel has displaced the ancient myths. But when the Gospel is lost, when the true truth, real virtue, and absolute beauty that the Gospel represents are forgotten and banished from our "post-Christian culture," then we are worse off than ancient man with his imperfect but beautiful mythology. To borrow Nebel's imagery, we no longer have an empty stage, from which great tragic drama has swept false hopes, leaving us ready to hear the true hope of the Gospel, but we have a pit, a sordid abyss filled with the wretched residue of Western culture. It is from this pit that "Lucifer's darling" emerges and in it that the "Black Sabbath" is celebrated.

Is it possible for a drunken man to understand the Gospel? No doubt it is not impossible, but most of us would prefer trying to explain it to him when he was sober. His drunkenness may point out to others the misery of his condition, but it usually deprives the man himself of the ability to recognize it or, even if he does recognize it, to do something constructive about it. Ancient philosophy and literature did not have answers to the human predicament, but often they left men with a sense of longing and expectancy that made them receptive in the Gospel when it was proclaimed. Modern "culture," in many of its forms, is more the drunkenness. To those observing it from the outside, its misery, futility, and despair seem to cry out for transformation for salvation. But to those within it, that which looks disgusting to the outsider seems like that which is most desirable. One is not likely to look for a way out, and even less likely to find it.

Paul speaks of the "eager expectation" or "anxious longing" of the whole creation for the revelation of God (Romans 8:19). Ancient culture, despite its often high, always flawed ideals, could not satisfy this longing, but it did share it and often increased it. Modern culture seems to have lot its myths, debased its heroes, and preserved only its demons. Jesus said, "Seek, and you shall find" (Matthew 7:7). The cardboard heroes (at best) and the larger-than-life villains and demons of modern "culture" are creating such a disillusioned society that fewer and fewer people have the courage or even the curiosity to "seek the things above" (Colossians 3:1).

It would be comforting to think that our popular culture might be renewed and thus offer once again a kind of preparation for the Gospel. In fact, however, the culture cannot renew itself. It lacks the power, it lacks the insight, it lacks the motivation. As Wilhelm Roepke wrote years ago, successful capitalist culture consumes itself, and rots from within. It needs to be renewed by something coming from outside itself. The only thing that is really and truly from outside our culture is the Word of God.

During the Age of Reason--the eighteenth century, when the United States came into being--many people, including the majority of America's Founding Fathers, thought that they could replace the narrow dogmatism of "sectarianism" (i.e., of Christianity) with the broader virtues and ideals of a renewed classical civilization. This hope is reflected in the monuments and ideas of the early days of the United States, so many of which were drawn from the Roman Republic. But such "republican" virtues, which were not as strong as the Gospel, have no power in a world that thinks that it has made the Gospel obsolete.

In the most degenerate days of ancient Rome, there was a deep sense of self-disgust throughout society. Before society destroyed itself, the Gospel was proclaimed, and there was social and cultural renewal as well as new spiritual life. Can such a thing happen once again in Western, "Christian" society? Indeed, it can, but it will require a consistent proclamation and living out of the Word of god, with patience and perseverance, despite the fact that the senses of society seem to have become too gross to comprehend it.