What does Harris mean by joy?

OPINION:

Can we agree that words mean something? All of us know that there is great power in our words and that civilizations are built and cultures are conquered not so much by armies and navies, but by speeches and lectures, blogs and books — in other words, by the power of our words more so than the threat of bullets and bombs.

This was Huxley and Orwell’s message. They warned of dystopias where the manipulation of words would be used as a means to total power and total control. As your grandmother said, garbage in, garbage out. She was right. Words form your ideas, and ideas have consequences.

We are in a cultural crisis. America no longer has a binding “cult” to hold it together. Every day, we find ourselves more segregated rather than integrated. Balkanization and tribalism run rampant. We seem to have no common cause, common beliefs or even common definitions for our most oft-used words.

Our words no longer mean anything. Words such as green and gay, left and right, love and hate, and even male and female have been turned upside down. Those preaching tolerance tell us our intolerance is intolerable. Champions of inclusion proudly exclude all they don’t want to include. Even words such as “hope,” “change” and most recently “joy” have become vacuous campaign slogans used by political hucksters who know these buzzwords can mean anything to anyone. Hope for what? Change what? Joy about what? The answer doesn’t matter to the demagogue as long as you vote for him or her come Nov. 5.

How did we get into this mess? First and foremost, it’s the Christian church’s fault as much as it is the world around us. For decades, we have either been asleep at the switch or, even worse, we have been awake and didn’t care as we watched our next generation being taught that “it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as it works for you,” that all morality is relative and that good and evil are subjective social constructs.

Year after year, we’ve let the dominant cultural narrative suggest that traditional orthodoxy is stupid and that liberation theology is the only “good religion.” Day in and day out, we’ve done little to stand in the way of messages of class resentment, racial animosity and selfish entitlement. Why are we surprised at the result?

But there is an answer to this absurdity. It’s found in the Gospel of John and later in the Book of Revelation. Here, we read that Jesus is described as the “Word” and even as God’s alphabet: “In the beginning was the Word … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) and “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Revelation 22:13). There is a reason Christ is described this way, and that reason is that he himself is our dictionary. He defines everything; without him, nothing has meaning, and no word is defined.

So, let’s go back to all this talk about hope, change and joy. If we look to Christ, how do we define these terms?

First, we all intuitively know we are hopeless. We understand the flaws of our human nature and know the evil that lurks in every human heart, and we yearn for a way out of this mess. We all hope for a better world and to be better people.

Second, as for change, we all recognize that what we were “assigned at birth” must become something different, better and new. As G.K. Chesterton tells us, the fact that human beings are in desperate need of repair is the most provable part of all Christian theology. Our desire to change ourselves did not spring on the scene in Haight-Ashbury. It is a story as old as time. It’s the saga of our sin and our hope for redemption.

Third, history has repeatedly proved that meaningful change is never found in the weakness of our passions but rather only through the joy offered to us by Christ. “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. … We are far too easily pleased.” (C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”)

There’s a huge difference between the Nazi propaganda of Strength Through Joy and praying “May the God of hope fill you with all joy as you trust in him.” Mindlessly cackling about some nebulous “joy” that neither you nor your listeners can define is closer to one than the other.

• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host.