Fidelity in a polytheistic world expresses itself by its attempt at faithfulness to multiple things at the same time. In Islam we complain about polygamy: marriage to many women at the same time. In the West, we wink at divorce really. The West does not stand for polygamy, per se, but it allows for multiple consecutive marriages. Similarly, we are ever fighting against the exploitation of the female because there is still a measure of disposability women have in our country. Men in our country are groomed to be "players": multi-faceted, multi-talented, always multi, multi, multi. Disposability on the one hand and multiplicity on the other hand means that young men and women are groomed for no one and to be no one in particular.
It is similar to the way we have raised monotheists in this country, not realizing that we were not raising Christians. Modern apologetics endured a a short period that was infatuated with logical systems. They rationalistically argued for the existence of Deity. The idea was that you move someone to a point of conceding the existence of "a" deity. From that point on, it is considered a simple step to "becoming" Christian. Because they mechanistically argued for a mechanistic deity, not the one described in the Bible as the Infinite-Personal God, they groomed a people who think it "stupid" not to believe in God. Is that an improvement?
Of what virtue is the study of intelligent design if we are doing nothing but bringing an individual to the concession that "a" god exists? It is no virtue. Why? Because the world-spirit believes in deity! It is no longer a world dominated by atheism like it once was. I have said before that you can have one thousand atheists arguing against the reality of God and it does not change the reality of what is. On the other hand, you can have one thousand Creation scientists arguing for the existence of God and it still will not change the reality of what is. It is hard to get men to see this, though.
Christian fidelity means faithfulness to a certain kind of cause. That by no means diminishes the uniqueness of legitimate diversity in calling and approach (which some people think it means). We each should see our "little" callings as little and a part of a bigger whole: it is ours indeed but it is little. Some individuals, communities, and people groups have egos that do not allow them to collaborate with others they would find to be friends were they to give them a chance. Some people's agendas do not allow them to recognize comrades in arms, so they go throughout their lives drumming up egoistic significance by effectively shutting out any help whatsoever.
Try visualizing yourself as little, regardless of any uniqueness you might possess that distinguishes you from others. Try concentrating your efforts on the alleviation of one wrong at a time or on the development of one idea at a time. By diminishing yourself, you will not diminish your effectiveness. In fact, by limiting yourself, you will develop your appreciation of and tolerance for others. Sometimes having no other options makes the decision before us very clear. We live in a world where multiplication is the rule. By concentrating on your personal business, you are really doing "many" things.
By concentrating your attention on the Bantu children this past week, you were doing "many" things--that is, if you were really being present with them. If your spirit resonated with even one child, then pouring your efforts into that one child was of much more benefit than trying to concentrate on all of the children at once which really means concentrating on none of them.
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