Perhaps the most famous April Fools’ Day joke of all time is the BBC’s “spaghetti harvest” prank. On April 1, 1957, a news broadcaster told his audience that a Swiss region near the Italian border had “an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop” that year.

The camera cut to images of people picking spaghetti off trees and bushes and then sitting down to eat their “real, home-grown spaghetti.” Some viewers got the joke, but others reportedly asked about ways they could grow their own spaghetti at home. 

Perhaps Volkswagen will make future April Fools’ Day lists. The automaker announced Tuesday that it would rebrand itself as “Voltswagen” to promote its electric car strategy. Now the company is telling us that the move was a joke. Since the Wall Street Journal and other outlets are reporting the story, the marketing ploy clearly worked. 

Here’s the moral of the story: Don’t believe everything you see in the news. In our post-truth culture, every day is April Fools’ Day. 

“Religion is the last bastion of sanity” 

Case in point: a CNN reporter wrote an article yesterday in which he stated, “It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.” An evolutionary biologist responded: “Observing genitalia is the consensus criteria for determining one’s sex at birth. It is inaccurate only about 0.018 percent of the time.” 

Writing for National Review, Alexandra DeSanctis adds: “The concept of ‘assigning’ sex at birth, far from being based on any ‘consensus criteria,’ is a progressive invention designed to inculcate new parents into believing that a child’s biological sex and gender are sometimes, or even often, misaligned, and that it would be damaging to them to merely accept the reality of their biology at birth.” 

This “post-truth” trajectory is especially on display in the so-called Equality Act which would elevate LGBTQ rights at the expense of religious rights. Margaret Harper McCarthy notes in the Wall Street Journal: “At stake is the freedom of rational human beings to use a common vocabulary when speaking about what all can see. . . . That is why religious freedom is also at stake. Religion is the last bastion of sanity.” 

Why is this true? 

The sexual revolution is an expression of the worldview that individual freedoms are the highest freedoms. Each person must be free to experience sexuality or any other dimension of reality as they wish. Personal beliefs are personal truth. As a result, the commitment to objective truth and values that lies at the heart of the Judeo-Christian worldview is the “last bastion of sanity.” 

McCarthy makes this point persuasively: “Those who believe in the invisible order are now the last custodians of the visible one.” She closes with a powerful and sobering prediction made by G. K. Chesterton more than a century ago: 

“Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face.” 

“Not as I will, but as you will” 

In a day when defending not just Christian truth but the concept of truth itself is controversial and dangerous, it will be tempting for Christians to retreat from the “culture wars” and thus from secular culture. This despite the fact that we are commissioned to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19) as Jesus’ “witnesses” (the Greek word can also be translated “martyrs”) where we live and around the world (Acts 1:8). 

When obedience to our commission comes at a cost, we find ourselves back in the Garden of Gethsemane. Few of us relish conflict and persecution; most of us would like to be free to live and let live. As a result, we find ourselves praying with Jesus on Maundy Thursday, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39a). 

What we need is the courage and commitment to finish his prayer: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (v. 39b). 

Here’s the good news: We can pray for the faith to have faith. We can say with the father of a demon-possessed son, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We can do what Jesus did, telling our Father what we want but then submitting to his will. We can ask for the courage to have courage and for the power to be obedient. 

“We have every reason to say thanks to him” 

Is your Father calling you to serve him at a cost? Are you facing a temptation to refuse, a sin to confess, a person to forgive, a person from whom to seek forgiveness? Someone who needs your witness or compassion or service? 

When last did it cost you something significant to follow Jesus? Is there a better day than Maundy Thursday to pray, “Not as I will, but as you will”? 

Max Lucado asks: “You wonder why God doesn’t remove temptation from your life? You know, if he did, you might lean on your strength instead of his grace. A few stumbles might be what you need to convince you his grace is sufficient for your sin. You wonder why God doesn’t remove the enemies in your life? Perhaps because he wants you to love like he loves. Anyone can love a friend, but only a few can love an enemy. You wonder why God doesn’t heal you? Oh, he has healed you. If you are in Christ, you have a perfected soul and will have a perfected body. His grace is sufficient for gratitude. 

“We can be sure of this: God would prefer we have an occasional limp than a perpetual strut. God has every right to say no to us. We have every reason to say thanks to him. His grace is sufficient” (his emphasis). 

Why do you need such sufficient grace today?

Denison Forum

Doramise Moreau stands next to the new car she received for her community service at Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church, Monday, March 8, 2021, in Miami. Moreau is a part-time janitor at a technical school. She spends most of her time shopping for ingredients and helping to cook meals for 1,000 to 1,500 people a week that show up for food at the church. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

When Miami Beach declared a state of emergency recently due to spring break partyers who overwhelmed the city, Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church was providing about fifteen hundred meals on Friday night for people in their neighborhood who might not have enough to eat. The story was so significant that it was reported in the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is back in the news. Last December, they raised millions of dollars to help churches, charity groups, and individuals, including giving one needy family a car and money to buy a house. This was part of their “culture code of generosity” by which they set aside ten percent of their income to help those in need. Now they have donated more than two hundred MacBook laptops to high school seniors and staff at a school in their area. 

And a church in West Virginia has responded to the escalating drug abuse crisis of our day by opening an addiction recovery house. David Stauffer, lead pastor of Gateway Christian Church in Saint Albans, was called to serve on a grand jury a few years ago. He recalled that around forty-eight of the fifty cases presented in just a few days were drug related. “I was convicted in that courtroom,” he told the Christian Post. His church’s recovery house is one response. 

American church membership falls below 50 percent 

According to Gallup, the proportion of Americans who consider themselves members of a church, synagogue, or mosque has fallen below 50 percent for the first time since Gallup first asked the question in 1937. At that time, church membership was 73 percent. 

Here’s the other side of the story: as author Glenn T. Stanton notes, church attendance is at an all-time high, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of the population. Baylor University sociologist Rodney Stark reports that the percentage of Americans who attend a local church has grown from 17 percent in 1776 to 69 percent today. And Baylor scholar Byron Johnson adds that “theologically conservative denominations (evangelical churches, Pentecostal churches, and especially non-denominational churches) are not in decline but are alive and well.” 

Dr. Johnson’s point is especially relevant to today’s Daily Article. Many of the churches and denominations that are in decline track and prioritize membership; many that are experiencing growth measure success in other ways. Many do not keep membership rolls, and they are reaching people in nontraditional ways such as weekday services, outreach events, and community ministries. 

We can define success by numbers on membership rolls or by members engaged in spiritual growth and cultural transformation. The two are not exclusive, of course. But if we must choose, we should choose the latter. 

Why Jesus wanted a silent Wednesday 

Jesus illustrated our point powerfully on this day of Holy Week. The gospels record no activities on this Wednesday. As best we can tell, he spent the day with his disciples at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany, a village two miles east of Jerusalem. 

Solitude with his Father was Jesus’ consistent pattern, from early in the morning (Mark 1:35) to evening (Matthew 14:23) and through the night (Luke 6:12). Writing on this subject, I noted that “Jesus knew he needed what only his Father could supply.” If he needed his Father to guide and empower him, how much more do we? 

Here’s an observation I would add today: Jesus not only needed intimacy with his Father, he wanted intimacy with his Father. 

He spent time with his Father because he wanted to speak with him, listen to him, and commune with him. His spiritual life was driven not just by what he needed from his Father but by who he knew his Father to be—a God of infinite love (1 John 4:8), power (Psalm 147:5), wisdom (Romans 11:33), mercy (Ephesians 2:4), and unconditional grace (Romans 5:8). 

We need to spend time with people for transactional reasons—we need their help, support, forgiveness, or guidance. We want to spend time with people for transformational reasons—we want to be with them and to become more like them. 

“He it is that bears much fruit” 

A transformational relationship with our Father empowers us to feed the hungry, meet the needs of students, and minister to drug addicts. It drives us to measure success by spiritual growth and cultural transformation more than by membership rolls in institutional churches. 

On this Silent Wednesday, let’s accept Jesus’ invitation to “abide” in him (John 15:4) by spending time alone with him in his word, worship, and world. Let’s claim his promise that “whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (v. 5a). Let’s remember his warning that “apart from me you can do nothing” (v. 5b). 

John Donne testified: “I count all that part of my life lost which I spent not in communion with God or in doing good.” As we have learned today, the first leads inevitably to the second. 

When was the last time you prayed, read God’s word, and spent time in worship because you needed something from God—his forgiveness, guidance, or help? 

When was the last time you prayed, read God’s word, and spent time in worship because you wanted simply to be with your Father? 

Why not today?

Denison Forum