The Origin of the Snowflake
The 'snowflake/social justice warrior' might just be a reflection of the church. While the Holy Spirit is at work producing a generation of Christians like no other, we face a world seemingly immune to our witness. But what if they were a product of our weakness instead? What if our discomfort with truth was responsible for the current assault on truth? It means certain victory! Like any snowflake exposed to heat and light, they will melt as quickly as the crystalized droplet, from which they derive their name. This is the unavoidable outcome of a generation coming of age.
We are Responsible
When we criticize what is wrong with the world we may as well be criticizing ourselves. This is both the curse and blessing of influence. Once you have it, you become responsible for the outcomes. Whether we realize it or not, our influence sets a tone for others by action and inaction.
A wise person said, ‘When the church sneezes the world catches a cold’. Which is to say, those with spiritual authority are pivotal. We have the power to slow the advance of darkness. Since we are the light of the world, the existence of darkness is an absence of light. We permit it! In this sense when there is darkness to be cursed, we can be sure we are part of the problem.
Like evil that thrives when good men do nothing, there is a power in light that restrains darkness. This is implicit in the calling on us to be salt and light.
So the question becomes, ‘How did we as believers contribute to the snowflake?’ To answer this we have to connect the dots.
Origins of a Snowflake
It begins when we realize that what is tolerated in the church is celebrated in the world. If we are not bold in our acceptance of the truth the world will be even less so. When the church is hesitant toward truth expect the world to be adverse; when we resist the truth the world will be antagonistic. We set the pace!
Church leaders, in response to easily offended congregants, have sheltered the saints by creating comfortable buffers. Hesitant preachers have created their own kind of trigger warnings for delicate ears. The result is a world thriving on 'safe zones'. We deemed truth risky, and so now the culture considers it a threat.
The effects of tailoring messages to the whims of the people are far more dangerous than we know. Some might call it wisdom, and to the fearful it may seem that way. But the clear instructions of scripture is that those who speak ought to do so, as though they were the very oracle of God(1 Peter 4:11). On the other hand mincing words in order to remain popular brings us precisely to where we are.
Leaders must take responsibility for spoon-feeding the sheep. It seems the very definition of pastoring has evolved into the skill of ‘not offending anyone ’– impossible when speaking the truth.
When we look at the way believers have been coddled the pattern becomes easy to trace. Rather than serving a nourishing healthy diet, everything is sprinkled with sugar. The sugar, in this case, is a dose of egocentric motivators common to kindergarten where everyone is great. All of which only reinforces self-centeredness. If this is our discipleship model, what can we expect from the world?
Maturity & Fathers
There is a tension here we have all seen before. So it is not by coincidence that we read this commentary from Hebrews.
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.”
– Hebrews 5:12-13
What is the problem? They were not maturing at the rate they should have been. We have the same challenge today. It is evident in the resistance toward maturity clearly rooted in spiritual opposition. Not by coincidence, the Hebrew writer eventually turns his attention to spiritual fathers. Why? By and large the role of a father favours the kind of hardship necessary for maturity.
Consider the Apostle's words.
"If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?
– Hebrews 12:7
His entire correction is a call for respecting the place and role of fathers. There is something to be said for nurturing, yet equally critical to maturity is that which chastens the flesh. As such, preaching must expand beyond nurturing affirmation to include the provoking sounds of a father.
The Aversion to Father
Still, there is resistance to spiritual fathers. The reasons are many, though not to be ignored is the fact that we prefer ease over hardship. If you had a choice what would you want? Work in the fields alongside your father, or eat ice cream at regular intervals in the comfort of your home. Besides, the implicit role of fathers hastens us into hardship for the sake of maturity.
Knowing this our enemy resists our coming of age. He will do anything to undercut the value of fathers including creating offense. Still, a father’s discipline, which is never pleasant,(Hebrews 12:11) is an easy place to start. We might think we are doing a child a favour by sheltering them from it, but we are not! We need both.
Children thrive best when mothers and fathers are present. The same is true for spiritual children as it is for natural ones. Fathers may not be the same doting figures mothers can be, but the hardships a father allows are critical for growth.
Depriving Nurture
We ought not forget the classic tale of misplaced empathy. It involves the would-be butterfly given help as it emerges from the cocoon. Without the struggle, the butterfly will never fly. Likewise, there is a perfectly normal, but sometimes harsh introduction to the demands of adulthood.
Some nurturers wrestle immensely with the idea of seeing their babies suffer. Yet if they truly love them, they will invite it. Even so, the contemporary family has a serious aversion to struggle. In psychological circles, they call this tendency ‘helicopter parenting’.
This is an overly protective approach which includes an unwillingness to let children face obstacles. Instead, parents will shield their offspring from normal challenges or continuously rescue them. What they do is deny them the joy of success and the tenacity that follows failure. All of which is done under the guise of protection.
It does not stop there. We have a spiritual enemy leveraging the unique parenting roles of mothers and fathers to create discord. He has encouraged a competitive enmity between us, particularly in defiance of the role of men. The result is that hardships are avoided in exchange for perpetual indulgence. Hoping to deflect the possibility of pain, in the end, we deprive children of their potential.
Spiritual Children
In the same way, either cowardly or mistakenly well-meaning spiritual leaders have done the same. We have shielded converts from the hardship of truth.
Worse yet, we deliberately strive to eliminate tension for the Christian journey at the cost of the journey itself. Then, adding to an already compromised regimen, celebrate ‘smooth and flattering speech’ that views plain truth as uncultured.
Preaching is no longer a quest for souls, but a means of cultivating a following. Comfort and care become the primary goals of our messages, as we seek to assure everyone, how impossible it is to err. All too often, what makes a message inoffensive is the fact that no one present is implicated. To what end? The predictable result is a people who do not change.
In turn, there is collateral damage. The cost is a society unable to tolerate simple but uncomfortable truths. All this is because we cater to our spiritual snowflakes.
The Snowflake Solution
So what is the origin of the snowflake? How did we get to trigger warnings, safe spaces, and comfort coaches for bruised egos? Others contributed but we did that! Not any one person of course, but the collective ‘we’. At the very least, if we have not directly sown this seed, we have cultivated it. So what is our solution?
The answer comes down to courage. Leadership, especially spiritual leadership, must be characterized by courage. I once heard John Wimber, when asked what the church needed most, say ‘Courage!’ It takes courage to raise spiritual adults.
The Apostle Paul encouraged his spiritual son Timothy similarly.
“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops. Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.”
– 2 Timothy 2:3-7
Soldiers, athletes, and hardworking farmers are not afraid of hardships or pain caused by strenuous training. All of these, like all dependable leaders, can take the blowback of hurt feelings and egos for the sake of growth. Pastors and leaders, it's time to lean into courage.
Act Like Men
Paul encouraged the Corinthians to act like men (1 Corinthians 16:13). The clear inference is around the behaviours by which the courageous are known. It is not enough to know what cowardice looks like in others. We are called to emulate courage, act responsibly, and endure hardship. This we must do while remembering that what we permit in the ranks of the church, for good or for ill, will spread like a pandemic in the world.
Yet, we know there is a rising glory that will shine on a generation. In the light of what is coming, the world cannot but snap into alignment. Even so, the responsibility is ours. When we begin to enjoy the white-hot burning power of unapproachable light, everything changes – including the snowflake.
