Third-brother journalists

The following is Chapter 24 from my upcoming book Reforming Journalism. Comments welcome.

This is a good month to publish it because some college juniors and seniors, or recent graduates, have the potential to become third-brother journalists—and a great way for them to find out is to attend our 19th annual World Journalism Institute spring course.

All full-time WORLD writers and editors under age 45 have come through the course, as have journalists now working at secular publications from the mighty Washington Post to local weeklies. The course is free, with lodging and most meals supplied this year by our host, Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. We’ll again offer internships with WORLD to the very best course graduates. For more information, visit WJI’s website.

Earlier chapters examined why journalists need a high determination quotient, the ability to write and speak, and the discipline to avoid ranting, keep calm, and carry on. Chapter 22 discussed how Christian journalists should coexist with the laws and mores that rule non-Christian lands. This chapter will look at how we should coexist with others: by emulating neither the younger brother nor the elder brother within the parable of the prodigal son.

To review quickly the parable in Luke 15: The younger brother takes his share of the family wealth—one-third, according to Middle Eastern convention. He wastes it all in libertine living until perilous poverty forces him to change. He heads home prepared to grovel, since tradition demands that the entire village chastise him. He places his hope in an artfully prepared speech.

The younger brother prepares himself to grovel because he had grossly insulted his father. Sons typically received their inheritance when fathers died, so the younger son’s request to receive his one-third immediately was akin to wishing his father dead. The conventional Middle Eastern patriarch would have slapped his son, but the father in the parable gives the son what he wants. Now, though, the prodigal has wasted all that money, and expects punishment.

When the prodigal returns, the father astonishes the son by running out to meet him. That is uncouth behavior in the Middle East then and now—patriarchs do not pick up their robes and run to a child. A lot of Muslims and Jews do not like the idea of a compassionate God who runs to embrace sinners. What kind of God is that? But the father in the parable shows his extraordinary compassion.

We often understate, though, the problem of the elder brother. When the father puts on a feast to welcome back the younger, the older son is resentful. He complains to the father, “These many years I have served you. …” Not developed my talents. Not exercised my creativity. Served you, like a drudge. Since that was the attitude of the elder brother, it’s not surprising that the younger brother didn’t want any part of what looked like slavery.

As Tim Keller has pointed out in sermons and in The Prodigal God, the elder brother has done everything right, but joylessly. Reliable but self-righteous, he did not go out searching for his brother, which would be an act of love as well as an obligation in Middle Eastern culture. He refuses to celebrate the brother’s return or even acknowledge their relationship. He complains to the Father about “your son,” not “my brother.” His lack of love leaves him ready to shame his father by boycotting the party—the eldest son at banquets had the duty but also honor of checking to make sure that guests were adequately fed and watered.

Strikingly, the father shows his compassion once again by leaving the banquet he is hosting—again, an unusual event in Middle Eastern custom, especially when guests are eating the fatted calf—to plead with his elder son. The parable ends with us left in suspense as to what the elder son will do—because, by tradition, he has a strong case. Should not the just father punish the prodigal, instead of giving him what looks like a reward?

Here’s the key: The father forgives, the elder brother does not. The father does not forget, but he purposely puts aside the younger brother’s conduct. The elder brother remembers. The father is willing to accept the younger brother in a way that will change future family dynamics. The elder brother—much as he dislikes what he sees as his current slavery—does not want change.

The heart of the problem, though, is not past or present but wistfulness. The elder brother apparently wants revenge because he thinks the younger brother had fun, and he wants that fun too. He works hard but desires a prodigal lifestyle. The difference between elder and younger is that the younger was obnoxious enough to act out his desires while the elder repressed his. Then and today, if we are jealous of those who live out a playboy philosophy, we are no better than they. The essential difference is that we are cowards.

Jesus, of course, was speaking to Pharisees who lived by the elder brother’s rulebook, upholding Israel’s traditions but redlining grace. Today, we still have younger brothers who live merely to fulfill their own desires. Many Christians fight against a libertine culture. Of course younger brothers need to grow up—but don’t those who are orderly but loveless also need to change?

As Keller puts it, the parable teaches “that a man who has violated virtually nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors can be every bit as spiritually lost as the most profligate, immoral person. … Elder brothers believe that if they live a good life they should get a good life, that God owes them a smooth road if they try very hard to live up to standards.”

Stephen has neither an elder brother’s self-righteousness nor a younger brother’s scorn for righteousness.

JOURNALISM IS AN ARENA for competition between younger and elder brothers. In the United States, younger brother magazines along the lines of Playboy, Rolling Stone, and even People sell the libertine life. Supermarket tabloids and television shows make money off of lascivious sensationalism without explicitly approving it. Elder brother journalists, on the other hand, are self-righteous faultfinders—and it’s always someone else’s fault. Elder brother journalism lacks love, charity, compassion, and any sense that all of us, because of the human condition, are in this mess together. Christian publications that only look at sin among secularists can also be elder brothers.

Third-brother journalism is different. One important report in the Book of Acts is Stephen’s history lecture in Chapter 7. Stephen has neither an elder brother’s self-righteousness nor a younger brother’s scorn for righteousness. He realistically emphasizes the sinfulness of his people and the holiness of God. He understands Christian love and, even when facing a murderous mob, has joy in seeing God’s glory.

Christians throughout the centuries have taught the importance of joy not just in the future but the present as well. Chapter 15 of the Gospel according to John teaches that Christ came so our joy may be full. Chapter 3 of Philippians tells us to count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. Chapter 6 of Paul’s first epistle to Timothy emphasizes the great gain in godliness with contentment.

The 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards observed that “God is glorified not only by his glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it.” Pastor John Piper concluded, “We should pursue happiness, and pursue it with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy you cannot love man or please God.”

That’s something for Christian journalists to keep in mind when the going gets tough. With Piper and his colleague Sam Storms we should say, “Everyone longs for happiness. And we will never tell them to deny or repress that desire. Their problem is not that they want to be satisfied, but that they are far too easily satisfied. … We will labor to wean them off the milk of the world onto the rich fare of God’s grace and glory.”

THIS TEACHING IS ALSO useful because investigative journalists often tilt toward legalism. We can’t measure states of mind and heart but we can measure external compliance, so the conduct of elder brothers doesn’t not make for as colorful a story as the antics of libertine prodigals. Journalists can act like beleaguered schoolmarms who tend to praise compliant kids and condemn rambunctious ones.

Other tendencies: In higher education numerous younger brother colleges are party schools that proffer sex and stimulants. Evangelicals might back Christian colleges that try to avoid that by imposing tight rules in elder brother fashion—but those rules may lead to external conformity and self-righteous attitudes rather than deep belief. Both elder and younger brother colleges divert students from learning more about God.

A third-brother journalist has a different view of the nature of work. As Keller points out, God in Chapter 2 of Genesis brings order out of chaos and then says to man: Now you create more order. Adam is a gardener, not a park ranger. Work is rearranging the raw material in a particular domain so that it helps everyone to flourish. Music, for example, is taking the raw material of sound and arranging it so it brings meaning. Architects take wood or steel or other basic materials and create ordered space. Writers bring order to letters and words, and so on.

Since we are made in God’s image, work should also be play, a way for us to develop and use God-given creativity. We need to make money, as Adam amid thorns needed to wrest his bread from the dirt, but work is not primarily for making money. “It is,” to quote Dorothy Sayers, “the gracious expression of creative energy in the service of others.” The elder brother apparently never rejoiced as he worked. A younger brother who witnesses joylessness is unlikely to value gardening over loitering.

When Christians write about work we tend to cheer for elder brothers against younger ones who put play before work and then put off work altogether. But we need to recognize that elder brothers also have problems, as Dorothy Sayers pointed out in her classic book, Creed or Chaos? She described those who work to make money and view the actual result of their work as a by-product: “Doctors practice medicine, not primarily to relieve suffering, but to make a living—the cure of the patient is something that happens on the way. Lawyers accept briefs, not because they have a passion for justice, but … to obtain money.”

In being in, reading about, and writing about organizations, I’ve seen what happens when work becomes mere moneymaking without creativity. Precise work rules negotiated between New York unions and management often gave employees one specific assignment on the assembly line. For decades the deal was, become a robot at work so as to have lots of cash for evenings and weekends, when real living occurs. Elder brothers accepted that and worked efficiently but joylessly, but many younger brothers wanted no part of that. Others compromised by smashing out parts during their eight hours and then getting smashed.

How should we report the big debate about same-sex marriage that the United States has had? A third-brother journalist knows it’s vital to defend marriage, but when we talk about faithfulness in marriage as a duty, or as a standard to uphold, we’re defending an elder-brother marriage. Yes, traditional marriage fosters superior health and longevity, economic benefit and security, healthier and better-adjusted children, and so forth—but if our marriages are not filled with love, they are only resounding gongs or clanging cymbals.

The idea of falling in love is sometimes such a conduit toward younger brother irresponsibility that I’ve noted some Christians pooh-poohing the notion of “love” and even suggesting that arranged marriages are better. That won’t work. Marriage is more than a contract. Our goal is also to inspire hearts.

When Christians protest against homosexuality, we should not act like elder brothers. Several years back I covered Manhattan’s annual humongous Gay Pride parade and saw that marching homosexuals refrained from kissing each other except when they passed a dozen souls from a church who waved Bibles and yelled at them, “You’re going to hell, sodomite” or “You’re an abomination in the sight of God.”

One of the protesters told me, “Someone’s got to stand for the truth.” But elder brothers sometimes forget that truth without love is like sodium without chloride: poison, not salt. The presence of these self-righteous elder brothers allowed the prancing younger brothers to feel self-righteous. Ironically, ranting reminders about sin provided the opportunity to forget about sin.

Third brothers know that we can never have enough laws to banish sin. Law fails. Only Christ truly changes lives.

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE when a reporter thinks as a third brother and not an elder or a younger? Let’s look at politics. Elder brothers who are Christian conservatives tend to think that the right laws will help America to be the new Israel. Elder brothers who are secular liberals tend to think that the right laws will help America to be the new Europe. Both sets of elder brothers emphasize preaching at people. But third brothers know that we can never have enough laws to banish sin. Law fails. Only Christ truly changes lives.

Christians are more likely to fall into elder brother rants if we start thinking that America should be or once was a new Israel. With Christ’s coming, churches, rather than any particular country, are the new homeland of those whose goal is to glorify Him. The failure of ancient Israel proved man’s desperate need for Christ—and there’s no need for any more proof. Given such failure, imitating Israel is nothing to be proud of.

If we start idolizing our own country and demonizing others, we are making the same mistake as ancient Israelites, and some of their modern portrayers do. Stephen in Chapter 7 of Acts angered his listeners as he emphasized Israel’s history of sin and hope only in Christ. The United States and China are both wonderful countries with great but also sinful histories, so when we review that history from a third-brother perspective we should follow Stephen’s example of stressing God’s blessings but pointing to how Christ saves sinners.

Returning to Chapter 5’s discussion of overusing or underusing the Bible: Younger brothers tend to underuse it, elder brothers to overuse it. The dangers of underuse are obvious: Younger brothers rationalize killing via abortion, committing adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and coveting. An elder brother’s danger is the more subtle teaching that the Bible is a book of rules about what we should and should not do. The Bible isn’t mainly about rules and what we should do. It’s about what God has done.

Both younger and elder brothers need to take to heart the Bible’s basic teaching. God created the world and it was very good—but it wasn’t perfect. The very good apparently wasn’t good enough for human beings who sought what they thought was perfection. A renegade angel, Satan, tempted the humans to rebel. Adam and Eve fell for Satan’s lies and the world changed. It’s not very good any more. Evil exists in our hearts and decay mars the creation. Death has come into the world.

Most of the Bible is about what God did after evil came into the world. He was not content to let the world decay and rot. Even as He pronounced the consequences of sin, He also made a promise: that one day a special human being would outwit and defeat Satan, and that the earth would one day be restored.

The rest of the Bible is the story of how this works out. God forms a people and protects them against enemies. They sometimes fight wars, but they survive. They keep messing up, but He doesn’t abandon them. He shows this people His character. He teaches them about evil and the need for sacrifice. He shows them their inability to keep the law. They keep messing up, committing spiritual adultery, but God never abandons them. They are often unlovable but He always loves them.

When Christian journalists become solemn like some full-of-themselves pundits, we are not truly following Jesus, who regularly in the gospels flashes His sense of humor. Instead, we’re acting like disciples of the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who saw the moral value of any action as inversely proportional to the benefit we derive from it. Kant argued that we should do what’s good simply because it’s good, and any benefits we derive lessen the goodness of our action. Good actions are “disinterested.” Duty is meritorious. Enjoyment is selfish. The logic of this leads to a hard conclusion: The best actions are those that make us miserable. The elder brother in the prodigal’s parable is a Kantian hero.

The Bible, though, does not teach us to be stoics. The Bible weaves a story of love and rescue, promise and deliverance. It shows how a Redeemer brings to safety the blind, the lame, and the lost. It tells of a love so terrific that God willingly sacrificed His own Son to make redemption possible for these people. Sin still exists in the world and in the hearts of man. Until Christ comes again, creation still groans. But we see glimmers of the promised redemption. We see examples of self-sacrificial love, tastes of undeserved kindness, and glimpses of holiness.

The greatest stories journalists can tell grow out of such glimmers and glimpses.