Paul’s Letter to Generation X

Paul writes in the Letter to the Philippians, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is honorable, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (4:8). It’s a beautiful and inspiring piece of writing. One can imagine it printed on a Christian version of those motivational posters (you know, the ones with photos of soaring eagles, sunlight mountaintops, and so on).

But if I may be so bold, I don’t think Paul was primarily intending to inspire. He was giving practical advice. As Christians, we are called to become like Christ. OK, how do we go about doing that? Paul’s giving us one way, and a remarkably practical one.

It’s simple, when you think about it (as most good advice is). If you want to have the mind of Christ, fill your mind with thoughts about what’s pleasing to God. Notice how wise Paul is: to guide us in forming our minds, he tells us what we should think about. He doesn’t tell us to work at not thinking about certain things, since everyone knows that the best way to think about something is to try not to think of it. Quick, do not think of a pink elephant! Gotcha.

What’s more, there’s a certain fatigue point to the will, just like with muscles. Our culture worships the false idols of wealth, power, and sex – and thanks to mass media, our ears and eyes are flooded with messages, images, pressures to do what we shouldn’t. What happens if we let objectionable messages flow around us unchecked, and just try to deal with them one by one, with our own willpower? Here’s what often happens, over time:

Song about sex: Shouldn’t do it.
Image of violence: Shouldn’t do it.
Promotion of greed: Shouldn’t do it.
Image of sex: Shouldn’t…
Song about violence: Yeah, shouldn’t…
Promotion of greed: Hmmmm… yeah, yeah, got it.
Sex, violence, greed: Sure, whatever, I’m fine.
Violence, greed, sex: This isn’t so bad, everyone else is OK with it…

It has an effect – but slowly enough, and subtly enough, that it’s difficult to detect when you’re in the middle of it.

Case in point: when I was in the eighth grade, there was a major media fuss about the George Michael song “I Want Your Sex” – anybody else remember that? People were concerned that it would send the wrong message to kids, by promoting premarital sex as consequence-free and casual, when in reality it’s anything but. But ironically, that George Michael song sounds almost innocent to me now. In retrospect, the song is largely the voice of the hormonally driven teenage boy, a sort of vocalized wishful thinking that just needs to be channeled into the proper direction. (Because, after all, sex is good – God made it! – within the context of marriage that He made it for). In contrast, what do we have now? Songs that not only glorify casual sex, but explicitly demean women, referring to them as whores, degrading and insulting them. Violence, too, is more common and more explicit in music.

I bet a lot of parents would breathe a sigh of relief if all their children’s “Explicit Lyrics” CDs suddenly turned out to have nothing but warblings of “don’t you think it’s time you had sex with me?” instead of what’s actually on them. (After all, in this song the frustrated boy doesn’t seem to have actually convinced the girl…) But of course, the problem is the slippery slope, culturally speaking: I doubt anyone would have had any trouble saying “No way!” to today’s explicit media back in 1987; it would have been clearly beyond the pale. But of course that’s not how it happened; it was a losing battle the whole time. “Shouldn’t listen to that… shouldn’t look at that… shouldn’t think about that… oops, too late…”

Well, what do we do? Throw up our hands in defeat and say “Fine, anything goes?”

No, that’s not what we do. But what we absolutely have to do is stop fighting the rear-guard battle of seeing-but-disapproving, hearing-but-trying-not-to-listen. Paul didn’t know anything about television or text messaging, MTV or megamalls, but I bet he’d take one look at the landscape, size up the situation, and tell us something like this:

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is honorable, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9).

Paul knows very well that what we think about becomes part of us. If we fill our minds with what’s pleasing to God, there will be no room for the wrong things to fit into our heads and take hold of us.

So what does that mean in practice? Small changes, but small changes that matter.

The other day, as I was driving to fencing practice and listening to the radio, a song came on that I knew and liked. I was humming along – it’s a catchy song with a good rhythm – when I realized suddenly what the lyrics were actually saying. The song was about adultery, and how really it is no big deal – that little ring on the finger doesn’t mean anything, so let’s sleep together, oh yeah baby.

I thought: I like this song; I already know it’s wrong to commit adultery, so it won’t do me any harm to listen to it. Right…?

But then I thought of Paul’s gentle admonition to the Philippians, and I realized: This is definitely not something that’s pleasing to God. And I changed the channel.

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