Like Swinging Pendulums

Have you ever heard one teenager say something like this to another teenager? “If I ever have kids, I’m not going to raise them like my parents raised me.” Or maybe you’ve heard a fellow-employee at work declare, “If I were in charge, I sure would make a lot of changes around here.” The accuracy of these statements is beside the point; they illustrate a human tendency that we have all experienced to varying degrees. People tend to react. Maybe you’ve seen this in the lives of your friends or of your own children. Or perhaps, if you are a student of culture, you’ve seen signs of reaction in the broader world around you. And, in moments of reflection, you might even be able to see this tendency in your own life.

Like two magnets with repelling polarities, people tend to react to certain qualities of the generation that went before them, resulting in a pendulum-like swing in the opposite direction. In Christian culture, pendulum swings often carry spiritual overtones. Common reactions from one generation to another include approaches to raising children, how to view emotions, how to engage with external standards (like alcohol, music or dress), views of mental health, and ministry philosophy. Some pendulum swings sweep across an entire generation while others remain confined to individuals or families. But not all types of correction are created equal.

Admittedly, these categories of pendulum swings have not been formally catalogued or tested. But perhaps they can provide a starting point for further reflection.

1) Unwarranted corrections

Some reactions are simply unwarranted. From a Christian perspective, this occurs when one generation ignores God’s Word to pursue blatantly sinful behavior. All too often, the voice of worldly culture drowns out the voice of God, leading to a disregard of clear Scripture instruction.

2) Warranted corrections

This means that some reactions are warranted. Every generation has blind spots. Every generation can be deceived, falling into ungodly patterns. In those cases, the next generation of believers bears responsibility to see and respond to those problems appropriately.

The historical book of Kings provides abundant examples of pendulum swinging. Charting the spiritual course of the kings of Judah is like trying to follow a professional Table Tennis match as leaders careen back and forth with wild abandon. From God’s perspective, drastic correction was warranted whenever godly kings followed the reigns of ungodly kings.

Three of the worst offenders were followed by three of Judah’s best leaders. Joash followed the usurping Queen Athaliah; Uzziah followed Amaziah; and Hezekiah followed the notorious Ahaz. (Discounting Amon’s fleeting reign, Josiah following Manassah provides another example of a godly pendulum swing.) But it goes without saying that every godly correction was necessary because of an equally radical swing into ungodliness as the “bad kings” completely ignored God’s Law and God’s prophets.

These examples demonstrate that sometimes drastic pendulum swings are necessary. Christian history bears this out – from the early church to the Reformation and continuing on to modern times. The apostles repeatedly called for a drastic response to false teaching or to tolerating blatant sin (Galatians 1:8-9; 2 John 7-9; Revelation 22:18-19). But in all of those cases, God’s Word determines when a dramatic correction is needed. When the nation of Israel lost sight of the Truth, disaster followed, eventually ending in captivity and dispersion.

3) Warranted but too drastic

But consider a third category of pendulum swinging that seems to be all too common today. Often, the blind spots of one generation relate to matters of judgment rather than a whole-sale disregard of principles found in God’s Word. Anyone with an accurate understanding of the fallen human condition will expect this. Only the Lord Jesus maintained a perfectly balanced approach to life. We all tend to veer into ditches of our own making. Clear-eyed correction is one thing, but proudly over-correcting is another.

over-correction

Think of the proverbial frog placed in a pot of water on a stove burner. Heated gradually (the saying goes), the frog never senses the danger and is boiled alive. Simply turning off the burner would save the frog – or simply removing the pot from the heat source. Drastic over-correcting jumps in, snatches the pot containing the frog off the stove and throws everything out the window.

As in every area of life, pride can cloud our correction efforts, muddling even those areas that genuinely need to be adjusted. This often results in the correcting generation veering into a different ditch.

To put it bluntly, humans often react in pride, thinking that we have arrived. All too often, we respond to blind spots in the previous generation with warranted correction – but we lack nuance in how far we should go and how broad those corrections should be.

tempered correction

Looking back, I see examples of this in my own life and ministry. Having tasted the fruit of serving in a highly programmed church during seminary, I determined to avoid such pitfalls at all costs. When I became a pastor several years later, I came with a jaded distrust of all church programs. My goal was to create a discipleship-oriented culture: without the distraction of programs. Only the wise counsel of older, more mature men in the church rescued me from over-correcting. I did roll back some programs that were no longer helpful, but I eventually came to see that that the right kinds of programs can serve a genuinely useful role of supporting biblical discipleship in the church setting. In other words, the previous generations didn’t have it all wrong after all. Tempered correction.

Here, then, is a call not to chuck the frog out with the pot of water. Corrections from one generation to the next may very well be called for, but when following sincere Christ followers, drastic pendulum swings often do more harm than good because such corrections are usually sourced in pride. Carefully measured swings, tempered by Scripture, will benefit those we lead – with the added bonus of avoiding a humbling tumble into the opposite ditch (Proverbs 16:18).

Photo by Sunder Muthukumaran on Unsplash