[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 83 (Monday, June 14, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6967-S6969]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY GRADS HEAR DR. DENTON LOTZ

 Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the commencement speaker at a 
leading university in my state, Campbell University at Buies Creek, 
N.C., was one of the most impressive and meaningful addresses that I 
have ever heard or read.
  It was delivered by Dr. Denton Lotz, General Secretary to the Baptist 
World Alliance. Dr. Lotz's subject was ``New Hope for Destroyed 
Foundations''.
  Campbell University is a truly remarkable institution whose 
president, Dr. Norman Adrian Wiggins, is one of the Nation's most 
respected educators.
  Incidentally, in addition to his responsibilities as president, Dr. 
Wiggins serves as Professor of Law. I am obliged to add a personal note 
here: Campbell University's law school is the only law school in North 
Carolina not one of whose graduates has flunked the State Bar Exam for 
the past several years.
  But I digress. My purpose today is to ask that the text of Dr. 
Denton's commencement address at Campbell University be printed in the 
Record.
  The material follows:

 New Hope for Destroyed Foundations--Campbell University Commencement 
                  Sermon Delivered by Dr. Denton Lotz

``If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?'' Psalm 
                                  11:3

       Bob Dylan reminded his generation and ours that ``the 
     answer is blowing in the wind.'' But is it? Is it not rather 
     like the prophet Hosea of old said that we have sown the wind 
     and reaped the whirlwind? (Hosea 8:7) How many litanies this 
     spring shall we hear of Littleton, Colorado and why and how 
     children could lose all sense of values and go on a killing 
     spree? How many times have we read of parental 
     irresponsibility, the school's fault, youth are not 
     listening, and the litany goes on?
       What happened in Littleton, Colorado is symbolic of a 
     generation whose foundations have been destroyed. But, this 
     is not only the problem of this generation. It is the history 
     of the 20th century, with the gas warfare of World War I and 
     the gas chambers of World War II. As we enter the 21st 
     century, the President's dream of a new world order has faded 
     and bombs are falling on the Serbian dictator Milosvic, 
     ethnic cleansing continues, children and women suffer. Man 
     experiences the cruelest of deaths. We seem to be able to 
     solve the Y2K computer problem, but deep within humanity 
     there is something that is wrong. The Psalmist spoke of this 
     something as ``destroyed foundations''.
       Indeed when one considers our society we see a number of 
     destroyed foundations: in the family, in the world, and in 
     the church.
       (1). The family was long considered the pillar of a just 
     and moral society. Home was the one place you could always 
     go. But, today 60% of new marriages will end in divorce. The 
     result has been a generation of you people without 
     foundations. It is said that 3 in 4 teen suicides are the 
     result of divorce, and 4 in 5 psychiatric admissions. But not 
     only divorce has broken up the family; the community is 
     broken apart. All the blessings of modern society have not 
     brought us together but have divided us. On a warm summer day 
     in Havana, Cuba I saw this. There was no air conditioning, as 
     a result people sat on their porches, children played 
     together in the streets, people talked to one another. Our 
     modern blessings have caused us to close our doors, turn on 
     the air and sit in front of the TV . . . cut off from 
     community, alone and isolated.
       (2). The same is true for the church. Modern media has made 
     religion an entertainment business. Like Kirkegaard's famous 
     geese, we come to Church on Sunday morning and waddle home 
     and that's the end of it. Theological controversy within and 
     hypocrisy without have diminished the role of the Church. 
     When great tragedies strike, no longer is the pastor the 
     counselor, but immediately TV goes to Hollywood and our 
     favorite guru TV actor tries to console society which, 
     without God and without hope, has pretty much made a mess of 
     things!
       (3). And the government suffers the same fate. Government 
     in Washington is not trusted. Righteous laws proposed by 
     unrighteous legislators confuse the population. Indeed the 
     strong foundations of the capitol building are now guarded by 
     armed policemen, guard dogs, and metal detecting devices. 
     Everything seems to be falling apart. This spring even the 
     Washington cherry trees were not immune. Unknown and uncaught 
     beavers were chopping down cherry trees every night, until 
     they were finally caught. It is a symbol of our day. The 
     strong trees of justice, of equality, of morality seem to 
     being chopped down. Is there any hope?
       Well, if it is any comfort, we are not the first generation 
     to experience destroyed foundations. It seems to be the 
     plight of humanity. Indeed it is the human story. It is what 
     history is all about. Destroyed foundations, and rebuilding 
     new foundations that will withstand the next assault. This 
     seems to be the fate of modern man. Rousseau expressed it 
     well in explaining the agitated street life of Paris. He 
     called it the social whirlwind. One of his heroes says:
       ``I'm beginning to feel the drunkenness that this agitated, 
     tumultuous life plunges you into. With such a multitude of 
     objects passing before my eyes. I'm getting dizzy. Of all the 
     things that strike me, there is none that holds my heart, yet 
     all of them together disturb my feelings, so that I forget 
     what I am and who I belong to.'' (Cox, Religion in the 
     Secular City, p. 182)
       Does that sound familiar? Isn't that our plight today? The 
     dizziness of it all. The Psalmist knew the problem, as did 
     men and women of old and thus the question, ``If the 
     foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?''
       I. False answers: The first advice the Psalmist gets is 
     simply to run away: ``Flee like a bird to the mountains; for 
     lo, the wicked bend the bow, they have fitted their arrow to 
     the string, to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart.'' A 
     modern interpretation may sound like this: ``Let's escape 
     from it all and have a great weekend and forget all our 
     problems. The trenchcoat mafia may abound and have its sight 
     on us, but we are going to drink and be merry and have a 
     ball.''

[[Page S6968]]

       As you now enter the work force there are going to be many 
     temptations put upon you. You also will be confronted with 
     destroyed foundations and there will be many who give the 
     advice, ``Flee like a bird to the mountains.'' The 
     temptations to flee today are many, but three stand out:
       1. Materialism: The foundation may be destroyed but I am 
     going to make my mark in life by getting rich. This 
     philosophy escapes the problems of society by fleeing to 
     materialism. It accepts the creed of Milliken and his lot, 
     ``He who has the most toys in the end wins.'' What a folly! 
     What a poor foundation upon which to build one's life. 
     Materialism in the end becomes greedy and consumes the 
     possessors so that all values are lost except one's own big 
     ego. Materialism will not bring back lost love. Materialism 
     will not warm the stomach of a hungry child. Materialism will 
     not bring peace to our troubled cities. Materialism will not 
     bring racial justice. Indeed when the foundations are 
     destroyed the rush towards materialism is only a sign of the 
     foundation that has destroyed us.
       2. Pleasure and sports: When the foundations are destroyed 
     there is the temptation to run to pleasure and sports to halt 
     the further decay of crumbling foundations. Indeed, Edward 
     Gibbons in his ``Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' lists 
     this as one of the five basic reasons why great civilizations 
     die: ``The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year 
     more exciting, more brutal and more immoral.'' This indeed is 
     a social commentary on our present situation. Wrestling and 
     boxing without rules is the new big sport. Two combatants 
     actually try to kill one another. We have become mad when our 
     athletes are paid exorbitant salaries and our teachers, 
     police, and servants of society become paupers. What kind of 
     a value is that . . . and so the Psalmist warns of those who 
     say flee like a bird to the pleasure mountain of sports . . . 
     for in the end it means destruction!
       3. Ghettoism and Quietism: This is the last resort of the 
     religious. We will flee to the mountain and make ourselves a 
     little retreat center to escape from the evils of the world. 
     When religion becomes quietist it truly becomes sectarian and 
     useless to a needy world! Indeed we too have heard the cynics 
     ask what can one do when the foundations are destroyed and we 
     have been tempted to fleet like a bird to the mountain! The 
     tragedy of this type of ghetto religion is that it is so 
     heavenly mined that it is no earthly good. It was the 
     temptations of Jesus' disciples to flee to the mountain and 
     build a retreat center and have warm fuzzy feelings. But, 
     Jesus said, No! Go back down into the valley and where you 
     see my people who are hungry feed them!, where they are 
     naked, clothe them!, where they are thirsty, give them to 
     drink!, where they are sick, visit them! where they are in 
     prison go to them!'' And then you will ``inherit the kingdom 
     prepared for you from the foundation of the world!'' 
     (Matt25ff.)
       II. What can the righteous do? And so the Psalmist 
     disregards the advice of his friends to flee like a bird to 
     the mountains. And our advice to you is also to beware of 
     those who tell you to flee like a bird. What shall we do 
     then? Not that we are the righteous ones? But, we who would 
     follow a righteous God, what shall we do? How do we answer 
     the question, ``If the foundations are destroyed, what can 
     the righteous do?''
       1. Take refuge in God? ``The Lord is in his holy temple. . 
     . his eyes behold the children of men . . . '' From days of 
     old until today, men and women of faith have not fled to the 
     mountains, but they have fled to God. The Psalmist knew that: 
     ``God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time 
     of trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth 
     should change, through the mountains shake in the heart of 
     the sea . . . Why? There is a river whose streams make glad 
     the city of God.'' (Psalm 46f)
       What do you do when the foundations are destroyed! You go 
     the temple! You take refuge in God! God is not dead. He lives 
     and because He lives you can indeed face destroyed 
     foundations but not only that, you can regain strength to 
     rebuild the fallen foundations of your life! And thus the 
     Psalmist very simply advises us, ``Take refuge in God! Go to 
     the temple and pray!''
       Every student generation seeks a new experience of God. 
     Every student generation feels alienated from their roots and 
     their spiritual heritage and thus is seeking new ways. No 
     wonder there are so many sectarian movements out there . . . 
     all vying for the new age market. But in the end, they are 
     not historical faith, but faith built upon an illusion. 
     Therefore, go to the temple, go to church and pray! I 
     remember students at Harvard were concerned about 
     spirituality in my student days. And so every Thursday noon 
     we gathered in the cafeteria to hear professors witness to 
     their pilgrimage of faith. I particularly remember one 
     professor who had just lost his little girl who accidentally 
     hung herself. The professor warned the students: ``If you do 
     not pray daily, one day you will have to learn how to pray!''
       Korean Christians pray every morning at 4:30. Their 
     churches are full because during their suffering they 
     experienced the power of prayer! When the foundations are 
     destroyed the first thing one does is go to the temple to 
     pray and there one finds that God is our refuge and strength!
       2. Cease to do violence! The Psalmist teaches us that God 
     is a judge. His burning love is shown in his fiery justice! 
     God is a God of justice and righteousness who demands the 
     same from his people. He will judge the earth with equity and 
     demands justice. And therefore the Psalmist warns us, ``his 
     soul hates him that loves violence . . . '' (Ps.11:5) The USA 
     has become a very violent society. And the media thinks it 
     has nothing to do with it. Our children, before they are 18, 
     will have seen on television 18,000 acts of violence. Like a 
     drip of water on a stone, drip, drip, drip, it continually 
     wears at the fabric of our society until we are worn down and 
     violence becomes a way of life!
       The corollary to God hating violence is his demand for 
     justice. No theologian of the 19th century captured this 
     understanding of God as a God of justice more than President 
     Abraham Lincoln. In his Second Inaugural address he painfully 
     warned a country engaged in civil war: ``The Almighty has His 
     own purposes: `Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it 
     must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom 
     the offense cometh!' . . . Fondly do we hope--fervently do we 
     pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. 
     Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth 
     piled upon the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of 
     unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
     drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the 
     sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must 
     be said `the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous 
     altogether.' ''
       What do you do when the foundations are destroyed! Cease to 
     do violence! Remember that God demands justice!
       3. Do righteous deeds! Finally, the Psalmist considering 
     the alternatives before him is confronted with the final 
     challenge. He cannot flee to the mountains, that is the easy 
     way out. Rather he will go to the temple and take refuge in 
     God, he will cease to do violence . . . and now finally, we 
     hear the final command, ``Do righteous deeds!'' If indeed we 
     have prayed and sought God's counsel and refuge. If indeed we 
     have ceased to do violence, then our lives must show it! This 
     is the command of which the prophet Amos reminded his 
     generation, ``What does the Lord require of thee, but to do 
     justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'' 
     (Mich. 6:8) Religion that does not issue in a changed 
     behavior, changed heart, and changed action is not worth its 
     salt. Religion which contemplates its own navel and is 
     concerned about its own ego, is not a faith worth living, it 
     is not biblical faith, but a neurotic form of ego-tripism. 
     Biblical faith calls for action, not escapism.
       This is what we do when the foundations around us are 
     crumbling and destroyed. We do righteous deeds! In a little 
     village in Kenya I remember after one Sunday morning service, 
     the poor old women in a corner collecting what coins they had 
     to help feed a refugee from Somalia. In Bangladesh, some 
     struggling to make it from day to day, the women collect the 
     least coin to help others. In India, every day Baptist women 
     save a little of their monthly allotment of rice to help 
     those in need. Indeed these random acts of kindness are 
     fulfilling the Biblical command to be holy as god is holy.
       III. What do the righteous do when the foundations are 
     destroyed? Isn't there a missing link? Indeed we understand 
     that we must go to the temple, that God is our refuge, that 
     we must cease to do violence and beware of God's justice, but 
     how can we do righteous deeds? How can we flee to God? What 
     is missing? The foundation upon which all of these actions 
     are executed! The Apostle Paul stated very clearly that there 
     needs to be a foundation for our action and therefore he 
     boldly announces: ``For no other foundation can any one lay 
     than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ.'' (ICor.3:11) 
     Paul knows the temptation to flee like a bird to the 
     mountain. He knows the temptations of materialism, pleasure 
     and escapism. He knew this as a Pharisee until one day all of 
     his foundations were destroyed, existentially, spiritually 
     and physically. When he met Christ on the Damascus road his 
     whole life was turned around. He was a changed person with a 
     new foundation. He knew now that the city he was looking for 
     was not the secular city with all its dizzy attractions but 
     without foundations. He was now looking for that city which 
     has foundations whose builder and maker is God (Heb.11:10)
       As a soon to be graduate you will have learned many facts. 
     You will know many things. But, this does not make you wise! 
     Wisdom is knowing the foundation which undergirds all of 
     knowledge! Western civilization was built upon faith: faith 
     in the incarnation of God in His Son Jesus Christ. All of the 
     great achievements of the human spirit came from the freedom 
     of the Spirit through Christian intellect. The idea of the 
     university was that all knowledge was of God and therefore 
     the Universe should be studied because it was the handiwork 
     of God. All of Western civilization, great concern for the 
     arts, for freedom, for justice, for feeding the poor and 
     hungry, from where did these freedoms come? Are they not 
     rooted in the Bible? Is Christ not the source of freedom and 
     justice? Modernism since the Enlightenment thinks that it can 
     understand humankind without God, And precisely because it 
     has attempted to explain the world without God, it has become 
     a godless world with no hope and no future. H. Richard 
     Niebuhr commented upon this when he said that such faith was 
     weak because ``It preached that a God without wrath brought 
     men without sin, into a kingdom with judgment through the 
     ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.'' And so it is 
     today. Western civilization

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     wants all the blessings of Christianity without Christ. And 
     like fruit cut from the stem it will rot.
       What do you do when the foundations are destroyed? You 
     build upon the foundation which will endure. And that is why 
     for two thousand years the Church has pointed not to itself 
     but to Jesus Christ!
       And thus we close with the Psalmist question, ``If the 
     foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?'' Go to 
     the temple and pray to God as your refuge! Cease to do 
     violence! Do righteous deeds! Put your faith in the only 
     foundation for life, even Jesus Christ our Lord! 
     Amen.

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