Authenticity and Transparency are Overrated

I do not understand modern Christian values. When it comes to what is acceptable in the church I feel like a moral Rip Van Winkle, as if I fell asleep twenty years ago and have awakened to a whole new way of doing things.

The church I grew up in valued character, godliness and (gasp) holiness. People were supposed to do the right things, believe the right things and say the right things. We were wretched sinners and we knew it, but our goal was to be less wretched with each passing day. We worked to be different, to be better. Foul language was foul, revealing clothes were inappropriate, and crudeness was crude. No one talked about “being true to yourself” because ourselves were sinful and not worth being true too.

Everything has changed.

I listened recently to the podcast of a prominent Christian teacher. In the podcast he and a friend were talking about the struggles and challenges they had faced in their lives. They shared stories of loss and suffering that were real. In the midst of these stories their values were revealed. They spoke of other Christians with an air of condescension, castigating those who responded to their struggles with what they considered clichéd and shallow platitudes. They implied that these people were less Christian and less loving. They did not consider those well-meaning but misspeaking people simply mistaken, they considered them wrong and hurtful and deserving of being called out.

Profanity was also a part of the podcast. Proudly and without apology the pastor and his friend used language that was unprofessional and crude. It was clear that they had no problem using this language and that they thought it was silly for anyone to take offense. What was also clear was that they had no aspirations to improve the content of their speech. The social mores and standards followed by people like me were to them artificial and outdated and not worth following.

How could this happen? How could people who purport to be spiritual leaders be so lacking in grace and honor?

The answer is found in the comments people posted about the podcast. In the comments the speakers were repeatedly praised for being “transparent” and “authentic.” Transparency and authenticity seem to have become the most important values in "modern" churches. Because we are all sinners what is most important is not dealing with our sin but accepting our sinfulness. Because we all struggle what matters is sharing your failings, not recounting victories. Because Jesus accepts us as we are what is important is loving ourselves as we are.

As warm and affirming as this sounds, it is not what God desires. While God understands our brokenness and our sinfulness, He did not send His Son to die so we could remain in our fallen condition. Jesus died that we might have new life, not that we feel comfortable in our old lives.

It seems some have cast aside those passages of scripture that call us to be better, that call us to aspire to be more like Jesus not only in love and kindness but also in words and character. I believe that we need to remember that God calls us to be better than we are. As Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy-

“Set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” 1 Tim 4:12-13

The God who calls his people to “Be Holy, for I am Holy” wants his people to break free from the world’s practices and desires, to be well-rounded people of faith who, in every area of their lives, strive for the excellence displayed in Jesus. The apostle Paul said it well in another of his letters-

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice." Phil 4:8-9 NIV

Authenticity and transparency are of no value in and of themselves. There is no praise due those who are authentically crude and transparently selfish. We need to pursue lives that are authentically and transparently good, pure, just, holy, loving and godly. We need to be better.

-          Bart

Thanks for reading. Coming in a few days is the second Amazing Childbirth Story, a series of posts leading up to the birth of Christ. You can be sure not to miss posts by subscribing to the blog (posts will arrive in your inbox). Please share the blog with others by clicking on one of the social media icons below. 

Ungrateful Students and a Thankful Syrian

Some Thanksgiving thoughts-

Campus protests are erupting across the country. In response to perceived racial injustices students have disrupted football games, libraries, lectures, and every conceivable aspect of academic life. Administrators have struggled with how to respond, with most deciding to meet as many of the demands as possible and in so doing validating the claims of the aggrieved.

The outside world, of which most of us are a part, is less supportive. Columns and blog posts mock the students, calling them spoiled, entitled and ignorant. These criticisms overlook what I think is at the heart of their dissatisfaction and at the heart of many of the problems we face today.

They aren’t thankful.

We live in the richest nation the world has ever seen, with blessings and benefits that previous generations would have viewed as impossible fantasies. Most young people hold in their hands smart phones that have hundreds of times more computing power than that which powered the space shuttles, that can take and store photographs without film, and from which they can teleconference with anyone around the world. Today’s students have boundless educational opportunities, most of them subsidized by fellow citizens. They live in dorms that are luxurious, with movie theaters, restaurants and work out centers.

In spite of all of the blessings, they are dissatisfied and angry. There is no sense of gratitude, no consideration of their privilege. People their age in all corners of the globe battle poverty, disease and oppression on a daily basis and can only dream of what these young Americans possess but American students are mindless of the plight of others. Lacking any sense of gratitude, they protest over silly slights.

We as a society would do well to remind ourselves and our families of how blessed we are. A person living at the “poverty line” in the United States, $11,770 a year for an individual, is in the top 15% of income earners worldwide. The poorest Americans are wealthy compared to the rest of the world!

Perhaps it is time to change our focus. How different would our lives and conversations be if we stopped focusing on the things that we do not have and instead focused on what we do have? We who have been surrounded by plenty all of our lives can easily lose sight of the blessings we have received.

I spoke yesterday with a man from Syria. He left there many years ago. Today he works behind the parts counter at a Kia dealership. It is not a high paying job by American standards, but he spoke of the incredible blessing of living in the best nation in the world. He considered himself to be rich. He was grateful and content and it showed in his face.

I want to be more like him.

Happy Thanksgiving.

-          Bart

Pizza, Porn and Making a Stand

It was supposed to be a pizza party. It soon became a porn party. The members of the high school basketball team went to the local pizza parlor to hang out after a game. After a while the conversation took an unexpected turn. Several players took out their smart phones and brought up pornographic images. They laughed and joked and thought it was funny. For the one Christian member of the team it was anything but. It was awkward, and it was wrong. He called his parents and got an early ride home

When I heard this story I was heartbroken. I felt terrible for the young man who had been placed in such a difficult circumstance and I grieved over the lack of shame displayed by his team members. One thought repeated in my mind, “How did our society end up like this?”

There was a time when right and wrong were clearly defined. Not everyone chose to do the right thing but just about everybody knew what the right thing was. Wrong things included lying, cheating, foul language, underage drinking and alcohol use, and sex before marriage. Good things included respecting your elders, politeness, honesty and morality. Somewhere along the line these definitions were abandoned. Wrongness now only applies to such things as violent crime and political incorrectness and goodness is defined as whatever one wants as long as it does not directly hurt someone else.

How did this happen? It is the natural consequence of moral relativism. When right and wrong are no longer universal absolutes but are instead based on individual perceptions, moral decline is inevitable. Human nature leads people to think highly of themselves, so it is natural that people will define good as “what I do” and bad as “what someone else does” when given the opportunity. When good is determined solely by our personal desires there will be no need to rein our desires in.

When our nation embraced the moral relativism of humanism and  turned from its Judeo-Christian roots it also turned away from the well-defined moral code that guided our nation since its inception. Absent the boundaries of a clear moral code, immorality is boundless. Pizza parties become porn parties.

In such a world not only will immorality increase, morality will be attacked. Those who declare immoral behavior to be wrong will face accusations of intolerance, bigotry and of being judgmental. In such a context people of faith will endure difficult times.

When I deal with individuals who are caught up in an immorality I have learned that a simple question can bring clarity. My favorite question when I talk to someone caught in a moral failing is- "Is that the best you can do?" I challenge people to set goals of excellence for themselves, to strive to do their best, not to the minimum, in every area of their lives. I tell people that my goal in life is to be the best man, husband and father I can be, and that when confronted with a choice about a behavior I have trained myself to ask how the activity in question can help me be the best. 

I could go out and get drunk, but I want to do better than that, to have a clear mind and to remain in control.

I could look at pornography but I want to be better than that, to value my wife and allow her to be confident and secure in the knowledge that she is my ideal.

I could lie, I could cheat, but I want to be better, I want to be someone who is trustworthy, respected and believed.

The reason I want to give me best? Because God gave His Best for me.

-          Bart

Thanks for reading, take the time to be your best today. If you know anyone who may be encouraged by this post, consider clicking the share button and letting them know. Comments and questions are welcome. You can subscribe to the blog (click the button) to have future posts delivered to your inbox, or you can follow me on twitter @bartbarrettmd. 

Mass Shootings, Mental Health and Gun Control. A Medical Response

Americans are angry. Left or right, rich or poor, white or black or brown or yellow, we are all angry. 9 people are dead, killed on a community college campus by a lunatic with a grudge against humanity. As always happens after such senseless tragedies the national conversation has focused on one question. What can be done?

There is a sense that we “have to do something," but there is little agreement on what that something is. It reminds me of the patient who called to tell me about her advancing cancer. She had been diagnosed months previously and been told that there was no cure. She felt she had to do something so she went to Mexico and pursued multiple alternative therapies. They were unproven and ultimately ineffective but doing nothing did not seem like a viable option. The family wasted thousands of dollars and countless days pursuing the dream of a cure yet changed nothing.

Her story provides a reference point for any discussion about guns in America. Gun violence is terrible, mass shootings are an evil blight on our society, and too many young and innocent people have lost their lives. There is a naturally intense desire for something to be done. That desire is so strong that we need to exercise caution, as it can result in our doing things that ease our guilt and calm our fears but do nothing to actually solve the problem.

As I listen to proposed solutions there are two that are most often repeated. Many say we need stricter gun laws, that we need to make it more difficult for bad people to obtain guns. Others say we need to improve treatment of the mentally ill so we can identify potentially dangerous people in advance. The question that needs to be asked is, “Will these treatments cure the disease?”

When it comes to stricter gun laws it is logical to assume that making it more difficult to obtain a weapon would make crime less likely to occur. As logical as it may appear the truth is that gun laws are as worthless at stopping gun crime as coffee enemas are at curing cancer. Cancer cells are not impacted by coffee in the colon and criminals don’t respond to gun laws. The shootings in Newton, Connecticut and at the community college in Oregon both occurred in states with strict gun laws. A recent survey of men incarcerated for violent crimes confirmed that over 95% of them purchased their weapons illegally. Strict gun laws would not have stopped any of them.

What if we eliminated guns altogether? To return to the cancer analogy, proposing that we remove all of the diseased cells from a person’s body sounds wonderful, but it is impossible and therefore not worth discussing. In a nation with over 300,000,000 million firearms there is no rational or viable way to remove guns from our society. When we remember that we have thousands of miles of unsecured borders and that in such a scenario black market gun sales would be lucrative, such a proposal is not reasonable.

As desperately as we all long to live in a nation where mass shootings do not exist, an honest and thoughtful evaluation of the issue leads to the conclusion that the answer to the problem cannot be found in stricter gun laws. These laws, like alternative medicine for cancer, allow us to feel as if we are doing something and address our need to not feel powerless and to have a sense of hope but offer no chance of curing the disease.

Many have therefore declared that the solution within reach is for us to do a better job of caring for the mentally ill in our society. If we could identify and treat the potentially violent among us the problem might go away. As lovely as this sounds, honest mental health practitioners will admit that there is no effective way to identify these individuals. Those of us who treat mental illness on a regular basis (I see patients with depression, anxiety or bipolar disease daily) can tell you that not all patients who need therapy will consent to it. For patients with personality disorders and bipolar disease refusal of treatment is so common that it is expected.

What most Americans do not know is that the NIH estimates that in any given year 2.2% of the American adult population will suffer from severe bipolar disease. In 2014 that equates to 5,400,000 people. When we add in the 2,690,000 people with Antisocial Personality disorder, and the 2,450,000 people with schizophrenia, we have over 10 million mentally ill adults with diagnoses that might lead to violence. Given the rarity of mass shootings it would literally be easier to find the needle in the haystack. Mental health care in our country is a disaster and it needs to be fixed but any who think that this is the answer to mass shootings is dealing with a different kind of altered reality.

So what can we do?

1-      We can quit glorifying the perpetrators. Media should never release their names. I am personally in favor of all mass shooters being addressed by a derogatory term (I like “pathetic loser”). It will not eliminate the problem, but it will cost nothing and infringe on no one’s rights if the news anchor said, “9 People are dead at a community college in Oregon after a Pathetic Loser opened fire in a classroom.” Let’s remove some of the incentive.

2-      We can be honest about our options and likelihood of success. We do each other no favors when we mean-spiritedly debate proposals that will ultimately accomplish little.

3-      Let’s be willing to consider uncomfortable alternatives. We need to improve the ability of institutions and individuals to defend themselves against attacks. We should consider having trained and armed guards at schools and other vulnerable locations and give thought to allowing trained and qualified civilians who pass appropriate screenings to carry weapons if they so desire. While the thought of millions of Americans having the ability to carry a concealed handgun makes many uncomfortable, the fact is that over 4 million Americans already do, and that the incidence of crime or misuse of weapons for such individuals is lower than that of police officers.

-          Bart

I typically avoid political posts, and tried to remain objective. Thoughtful questions and comments are welcomed. Feel free to share this post with others.

A Whole Lesson from Half of a Butt

“Pull your pants up.”

It was a simple request, as his pants were hanging halfway down his backside. It was 2001 and it was a style commonly seen in teenagers but I did not think it sent the best message under the circumstances. He was a volunteer in the church’s children’s ministry and I thought that for some parents that “look” might be considered inappropriate. As I was the Director of Children’s Ministry for the church I felt it was within my authority to comment on his attire.

I was totally unprepared for the backlash that followed. The teen complained to his mom and the mom complained to the pastor. Before I knew it I was called into the pastor’s office. With a condescending tone he informed me that it was important that everyone feel welcome at church, regardless of the way they were dressed. He told me that I was being judgmental and needed to change my attitude.

He was as unprepared for my response as I had been for his. I told him that I agreed with him that people needed to feel comfortable at church and that was why I had asked the boy to raise his pants! I wanted to make sure that visitors bringing their children to church would not be taken aback by the appearance of anyone caring for their child. I reminded the pastor that serving in ministry was a privilege and that our student volunteers had agreed to follow the policies I had laid out. I told him, “If a student is not spiritually mature enough to submit to leadership in areas of dress, perhaps he isn’t mature enough to serve in Children’s ministry!” The pastor backed down from his position.

As the years have passed I have realized that the attitude of this young teen was not unique. Personal desires dominate our current self-absorbed generation. Little concern is given to the feelings or needs of others. People demand to be accepted “just as they are” and rebel against any suggestion they might need to change or improve anything about themselves. They can dress casually in any situation, use foul language in public, and be generally rude. It is only those who dare to comment who are considered in the wrong.

This me-first, don't tell me I'm wrong attitude is everywhere. I see it in patients who do not want to take responsibility for their health, in alcoholics who want to continue to drink and diabetics who do not want to manage their diets. I have seen it in former employees who want to be paid a high salary but refuse to do anything extra to help a patient. I see it in physicians whose offices are customer service disasters but who refuse to hire the staff or make the changes necessary to improve.

In every case I remind people that excellence only comes with effort, and that if they want to be recognized for excellence they will need to make some changes. No one is perfect and we all need to get better. Getting better requires a willingness to change our behavior and our attitudes. We may even need to pull our pants up.

- Bart

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