–– Lennox Kalifungwa
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Children of Darwin
The world insists that the goal of life is to survive, with extra credit rendered to those who can do so in the most convenient way. Risk is treated as a fool’s game; the trade of those whose aspirations are shallow and reckless.
Darwin’s anthropology outlived his final recantations. His assertion that life is about survival has become the social lingua franca, the agreed-upon ideal that all men must live by.
As a high priest of the secular order, Darwin composed a liturgy that sought to replace bread and drink with plastic meals and bubble wrap, ever ready to survive the coming apocalypse. The idea that a King would lay His life down and then spread a table for feasting runs contrary to the notion that life is to be idolised and food treated as mere fuel.
In Darwin’s thinking, a Father could not possibly send His Son to die. A Divine Being could not possibly allow Himself to be beaten and bruised by mortal men. Apostles of a great religion could not possibly be martyred en masse.
The folly of those who live by the religious creed of Christianity would be deemed foolish and irrational. Why willingly die by fatal flames to translate a Book of myths into the English tongue? Why suffer ruin for speaking the truth when a lie would guarantee seeing yet another day? For there is no God, and fear must be man’s motivation and the substance of his consciousness.
Darwin’s fatalistic musings were not confined to his chambers. They have become the common worldview that dictates how people make decisions, educate their children, pursue careers, and relate to neighbours. Fear is the motivator; survival, the goal.
The Goal of Life
“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” — Matthew 16:25
Most things worth doing in life are hardly safe. A good marriage demands that a husband and wife die to self. Bearing and raising children demands the death of selfishness and convenience. Loving others opens up the possibility of being sinned against. Enterprise demands a willingness to fail and experience loss. Being a pioneer invites mockery and ridicule.
The idolising of safety effectively cripples man from living as he was created to live.
One of the consequences of living in an effeminate culture is the proclivity to pursue safety as the chief virtue. When safety is idolised, the risk of losing friends, reputation, social status, a job, money, comfort, or an institution is avoided at all costs. Rather than build glories and fight evils, man begins to hide from evils (or appease them) and build bunkers. He has no eye for pursuing ownership and creating true wealth, and instead hides behind the safety net of insurance policies and well-paying jobs. He teaches his children to do the same: to pursue affluence as a safety net from struggle. He discourages his sons from danger, handing down fear as an inheritance rather than a sword of faith with which to fight off dragons. The thought of being on the mission field or being an enterprising pioneer is discouraged due to the lack of safety protocols.
When men idolise safety, they begin to baptise timidity and call it prudence; they baptise cowardice and call it wisdom. They choose to remain silent in the face of moral collapse as an act of self-preservation, convincing themselves that the next opportunity will be the occasion on which they will act.
The God Who Loves Risk
The Lord Jesus Christ told a parable about a servant whose master had entrusted him with one talent before embarking on a long journey. Rather than following the example of his fellow servants, who had invested their talents and yielded a return, this servant chose to bury his talent so as not to lose it. When the master returned, he was displeased with his servant’s dealings and punished him severely.
Modern and secularised sensibilities make it difficult for many to understand why the master would punish this servant. Those discipled in the dogma of Darwin cannot understand what moral atrocity the servant could possibly have committed. Was the servant not being wise and prudent by making sure the talent was preserved? Was his decision to keep the talent buried not the safest option?
The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is a profound picture that reveals God and what He desires. God is a builder who expects fruitfulness from His creatures. Fruitfulness often requires risk. It requires the willingness to confront danger. It demands true knowledge of and faith in the Master. It requires courage and conviction. The fearful servant was neither applauded nor rewarded for his actions. His fear revealed his unbelief, which prompted his stagnation and barrenness. The idolising of safety tends to cripple our capacity to be fruitful and multiply.
Death and Resurrection
A casual onlooker would easily conclude that a secularised world has been impotent to pause or stave off the spiritual reality of death. Scripture informs men that death exists as a consequence of sin. Darwin makes no attempt to deny the inevitability of death but rather crafts a doctrine that turns men into mice, seeking to evade the pursuit of the clawed predator for as long as possible while encouraging men to become predators themselves in order to survive.
Those who idolise safety and survival see only death and consequently live in fear of it. They cannot truly conceive of life beyond darkness.
The cadence of redemption is a beautiful pattern of death and resurrection. In Christ’s economy, death is the means to life. The Christian life is one in which men die to their sin and to themselves in order for life to prevail. Death is never the end for the Christian. It is the necessary gateway toward the imperishable and immortal.
The Christian’s understanding of redemption is the hope that fuels his courage, his defiance of evil, his sense of duty, and his unwavering devotion to God. The world threatens men with death, but the Christian laughs and calls it gain (Philippians 1:21). The world languishes in anxiety over what may be lost, exclaiming that the sky is falling and therefore pursuing safety. The Christian knows Who holds the skies and the future. Threats of suffering and death are overcome by a hope rooted in the One who defeated death and rose from the dead. Resurrection inevitably defeats loss, suffering, and death.
Dare Great Things
The greatest human achievements are earned by those who dare. Perhaps the most definitive tool in the arsenal of the accomplished is audacity: the persistent willingness to defy the status quo, to attempt what has never been done, and to stand unflinching in the face of adversity.
The audacity of a Christian lies in his understanding that he serves the King of kings and Lord of lords. He stands because his King reigns. He dies because his King rose. He dares great things because he serves a great God.