What to Do in Case of a Nuclear Attack

Some time ago I saw guidelines prepared by a human resources department outlining what employees are to do in the case of a nuclear attack. Though the statement was utterly serious, I laughed through the entire thing. I couldn't help imagining a mushroom cloud growing on the horizon as I grasped for the employee handbook, concerned about whether or not my instinctive reaction to hide under the desk would get me written up . . . or fired.

Needless to say, the whole idea of employee handbook recommendations for a proper response to a nuclear attack tickled my imagination in a Dr. Strangelove kind of way. And, as macabre as it may be, I was inspired to write my own employee handbook supplement.

XIII.2.A. What to Do in Case of a Nuclear Attack

1. Your individual response in the case of a nuclear attack first depends on whether you are the attacker or the victim. If you are the victim, the following policy relates to you. If you are the attacker, please note that instigating a nuclear attack is grounds for immediate termination of employment from the Company. See Human Resources regarding severance package options.

2. Nuclear attacks can radically change the weather. If a nuclear attack occurs in your area, call the Company’s inclement weather hotline to determine whether or not to come to work. Of course, your local situation may be different than that of the office, so if you need to use a personal or sick day to stay home during a nuclear attack, be sure to notify your immediate supervisor and report your time off.

3. Besides the risk of bodily injury or even death, nuclear attacks have also been known to cause skin burns, baldness, every known variety of cancer, multi-generational deformations, unexpected developments of super hero powers, and severe mood swings. In short, nuclear attacks can radically change your life. Please note that the Company insurance does not cover the therapy necessary to help you through these life changes, though you may use your flex spending accounts for this.

4. Do not look directly at a nuclear explosion (also known as the “mushroom cloud” or simply “The Shroom”). Doing so could cause blindness or permanent migraines, both of which could diminish workplace productivity.

5. The blast wave of a nuclear attack can take up to 30 second to reach your location and will arrive from the direction of The Shroom. It is inadvisable to hide behind things to save yourself from the blast wave, as these objects will likely topple and crush you. It is also inadvisable to face the blast wave unprotected, as blast waves can disintegrate you. The best thing to do in the 30 seconds before the arrival of a nuclear blast wave is to turn your back to The Shroom and run run run.

Be Taught . . . Be Stable

Is the Bible difficult to understand?

Yes and no.

Around AD 185, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote, “The entire Scriptures, the prophets, and the Gospels, can be clearly, unambiguously, and harmoniously understood by all, although all do not believe them” (Against Heresies 2.27.3). But that famous pastor was describing a particular kind of student who was “devoted to piety and the love of truth,” who would “eagerly meditate upon those things which God has . . . subjected to our knowledge.” Such a student of Scripture would “make advancement in acquaintance with them, rendering the knowledge of them easy to him by means of daily study” (2.27.1). The flip side of this is that the impious, the lazy, and those who fail to accept the limitations of our knowledge would not achieve even the basic level of proficiency in his or her understanding of the Bible.

Over a hundred years earlier, the apostle Peter gave us a similar warning about understanding Scripture. With reference to Paul’s writings, he said, “Some things [are] hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16).

How do we avoid becoming like those Scripture Twisters who wound verses of the Bible into a spiritual hangman’s noose? Peter painted a clear picture of them, and we ought to listen to his warning.

Untaught and Unstable

Peter said the “untaught” and “unstable” twisted Paul’s writings to their destruction. The Greek word translated “untaught” is the literal opposite of “discipled.” A discipled person was an apprentice who learned from a teacher over the course of several years. Thus, Peter said that one way to be a Scripture Twister was to be untaught by a teacher. The implication is clear: only those who have been trained can be expected to skillfully weave passages of Scripture together into a unified whole centered on Christ and faithfully representing the pattern of Christian truth. Paul called this skill “accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Peter also described Scripture Twisters as “unstable.” They were ungrounded, off kilter, “tipsy.” Picture the difference between a trailer house standing on cinder blocks and a building resting on bedrock. The unstable were like reeds in the wind, waving to and fro with the changing winds.

What was true in Peter’s day has never changed. Today untaught and unstable people distort the Scriptures, often unknowingly. They misread and misunderstand the Bible because they lack the patience, the humility, or the endurance to pass from spiritual infancy to adulthood, from the rank of novice to the rank of master. Yet they rest their bad theology and practice on the Bible and claim to be masters and teachers of things they don’t really understand (1 Timothy 1:7). They scoff at authority, reject tradition, and throw out the perspectives of other believers. All the while they claim “the Bible alone” as their only source of authority, not realizing that they naively read into the Bible their own inaccurate ideas.

In light of Peter’s warning, Bible-believing Christians need to be particularly cautious about how we read the Bible . . . and how we tell others to read it. For example, I recently read a book suggesting that if my Bible has study notes I ought to throw it away and get a blank Bible to read with fresh eyes . . . the teacher’s notes might twist my thinking! For another example: how many times have you been advised not to consult commentaries until you’ve come up with our own, personal interpretation? In light of Peter’s warning, I can’t help but read such exhortations as encouraging Christians to be “untaught.”

Peter would not have approved.

Am I saying that we should stop reading our Bibles on our own? No. But I am saying we should never read our Bibles in isolation. Taking personal initiative to read and study Scripture is right. But rejecting training and accountability with others as we read the Bible is wrong.

Be Taught . . . Be Stable

What, then, are we to do to handle the Bible accurately? Peter has already given us the answer: be taught and be stable. But how? By submitting to the teaching of the Holy Spirit working through His gifted teachers in the Spirit-indwelled community. We often appeal to the Holy Spirit’s direct, individual, personal work in our hearts to teach us (John 16:13). But this is only half the truth. The New Testament emphasizes over and over that the Spirit not only indwells individuals (1 Corinthians 6:19), making them responsive to the truth (1 Corinthians 2:14), but the Spirit also indwells the church (1 Corinthians 3:16), promoting the faithful teaching of the truth. This corporate model of how we are to be taught and be stable through the working of the Body of Christ is most clearly expressed in Ephesians 4:11–16.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Did you catch all the ingredients for being taught and being stable? Learning under gifted teachers . . . being fitted together . . . each individual playing a part . . . growing from childhood to adulthood . . . attaining the unity of the faith. Instead of throwing out my study Bible, I ought to let it fill the gaps in my knowledge. Instead of making commentaries my last ditch effort, I should learn from godly scholars. Rather than reinventing the wheel or seeking out the latest fad, I should explore the rich heritage of Christians who have come before me. And rather than leaning on my own personal understanding, I ought to glean what I can from the insights of other believers around me.

If we want to avoid becoming Scripture Twisters, we need to balance our personal Bible reading with community study under gifted teachers. Only in the context of a Bible-believing community led by trained and gifted leaders, we will become taught and stable teachers of Scripture, “accurately handling the word of truth.”

Where Do I Sign?

Four and a half years as a legal assistant at least taught me to read the fine print before I sign anything. But if "An Evangelical Manifesto" mentioned here asserts what I think it does, it will echo many of my same frustrations with evangelical perpetrators and victims of right-wing politics—the same frustrations, I have noticed, that are shared by many of my own thirty-something generation of evangelical theologians, pastors, and lay-people.

Here’s how I’ve generally sized up the situation as it has developed over the last couple of decades: Many American evangelicals have been duped by a simple equivocation of the word “conservative.” They have assumed that being a conservative Christian was the same as being a Christian conservative. That is, so many evangelicals act as though being conservative theologically and morally obligated them to being conservative socially, politically, and fiscally. They had to engage in conservative foreign policy, conservative environmental policy, conservative economic policy, conservative immigration policy, conservative everything. But this is simply uncritical rubbish . . . an excuse for not having to actually think through issues. They have been far too willing to be told what to believe about political issues by people like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.

I think biblically faithful Christians have made major mistakes here. They have blindly engaged in narrow-issue politics, finding themselves unquestioningly supporting a party that would affirm their pro-life, anti-gay agendas with heartless vigor. But what about the poor? What about the suffering? What about the outcasts? What about the sick? What about sharing the truth in love? When our political combat becomes an excuse for neglecting Christ-like love of the helpless and hopeless, we’ve gone way too far. I’ve actually been told by a fellow evangelical scholar that he applies Christ’s admonition to care for the poor by voting Republican! The argument goes like this: Republicans lower taxes . . . lower taxes stimulate economic growth . . . economic growth promotes job growth . . . job growth leads to higher pay . . . higher pay rescues the poor from poverty. Wow.

Over the last twenty years or so evangelicals have spent millions of dollars either defending or promoting Christian convictions in the political arena—Congress, the Courts, the White House. But I hate to think how many individuals have been alienated by the political wing of the evangelical subculture . . . and how many souls have been lost in the process. Have evangelicals unwisely diverted too much time, money, and personnel from advancing the words and works of the Gospel? I think it’s worth considering.

I’m looking forward to reading the "Manifesto," I doubt it will satisfy my current concerns without sparking new ones, but I suspect it will hit the mark close enough for many of us to finally breathe a sigh of relief.