Spiritual Discipline

Our pastor at church recently returned from teaching at a new pastor's training conference in India and participated in outreach events there. He mentioned in the pulpit today how much more modest the attire is there, especially among young women, and that you realize how much American culture is overly sexualized when you visit another more traditional culture. As he was preparing to return to the U.S. he was in a restaurant that had an American export, a sitcom, showing on a television screen. One of the local Hindu men, there with his family, became so upset about the trashy content of the show that he stood up in the restaurant and demanded it be turned off.



Being immersed in our own culture 24/7, we can easily fail to see that the media is all that most of the world sees of America. If that is all you know about America you can only conclude that America is focused mostly on satisfying our own appetites, as we feel that we have the right to satisfy any and all appetites at will. That of course has all kinds of non-sexual ramifications, like taking on too much debt to chase immediate gratification of other kinds (cars, houses, vacations), obesity, and whole cult of self-fulfillment.



While the Hindu world of the man in the restaurant includes an understanding of God that I cannot accept, most of the world, including the Christian world for most of history, has recognized that humans are prone to falling into bad behavior, behavior that is bad both for his overall culture and for himself. To prevent that bad behavior requires the practice of discipline, which conflicts head-on with the pursuit of self-gratification. It also requires many other things: grace, forgiveness, understanding among them. But it certainly requires disciplining ourselves as well.



One of the things that our pastor saw vividly when leaving our culture for a while is how very unwilling we are to practice self-discipline. This affects many areas of our lives: financial, eating, sexuality, education, anger, and more. While many of these appear to be matters of the body or money, they seem to me to be driven by spiritual discipline. If we do not recognize that our desires and appetites are prone to go bad, then we will not see the need to control them. If we believe that we have a right to fulfill any sexual desire, no matter how disordered it may be, we will not strive to control that desire. If we do not see the use of our money as a way to do what is right and make the world better, we will seek to consume rather than invest in a better tomorrow.



I think the TV picture of America that the outside world sees is, sadly, all too true. As a culture we have decided to pursue the fulfilling of all appetites instead of passing judgement upon them and controlling them. That is fundamentally a spiritual problem. Too bad that folks here in the U.S. are not demanding change like that man in the restaurant. But then that would take some discipline.