Vanity Fair
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Like most people, I like to think of myself as rather busy. I have many jobs. I edit and write for two magazines. I write books, speak at conferences, and run the Highlands Study Center . I stuff envelopes, answer the phone, give directions to the church. I serve as an elder and teach friends and neighbors. Most of this I do at home, where God has blessed me with six joys and ajewel greater than rubies that likewise take some time. But the truth of the matter is that I often fall behind not because God has put so much on my plate, but because of the regulator on my computer. Computers, of course, are in truth a great boon to productivity. But just as God confounded the language of those at Babel , lest they make their great tower, so has the devil confounded our productivity. His trick wasn't to diminish the power of the machine, but to divert a bit of that power. He did this simply by including with every personal computer a few simple card games.

We all know about the dangers of computers. Most of us have seen marriages destroyed by sexual sin that is often fueled by the ubiquitous, iniquitous porn industry that thrives on the net. Many evangelicals are likewise beginning to wake up that what our kids are playing on the their X boxes is not your father's Donkey Kong. But far fewer of us are wary of the dangers of things like computer card games, what we like to call, "harmless diversions." Perhaps "harmless diversion"ought to make its way onto the master list of oxymorons.

How can it be harmless to be diverted? If our lives are indeed a journey, if our calling is to make our way to the Celestial City , and if a failure to reach the city means in turn staying in the City of Destruction , then diversions are damnable. Which is why, I think, the devil is just as content for me to be playing cards on my computer as he would be to have me trading my paycheck for Keno cards down at the local Indian reservation. Which is why likewise the devil is content for Christians to engage in letter writing campaigns to make sure Touched By An Angel stays on TV, that Beavis and His Companion get off the TV, and that Madeline Murray O'Hare's nefarious plot to rid the world of the 700 Club is stopped. Such piety delights the devil even more than the sleaze we're trying to get rid of.

In short, the problem with pop culture isn't first that it's sleazy, but that it is a distraction. It is not a dark vanity, but a fair vanity. But a vanity nonetheless. To devote one's life to making sure that the distraction has a G rating is to succumb to the distraction. Even when we win the battle, we lose the war.

But wait. It's one thing to take a Freecell break in the middle of working on this article.. .(for those of you keeping score at home, I won the game, but lost four minutes. Of course this time the time was well spent as it was all for the sake of helping others learn these important points).. it's another thing altogether to relax afler the workday with some harmless diversion, right'? Not at all. For while our work may stop at a particular hour, our vocation is never through. While it is utterly appropriate to rest and to recreate, this is not the same thing as distraction.

Instead we ought, as we rest and recreate, to be about the business of creating not pop culture, but transcendent culture. We ought always to be about the business of making visible the invisible kingdom of God . When, for instance, I am seeking to master the mandolin that Jonathan has lent me, I am not distracted, but actually moving closer to the Celestial City . (And I am encouraged to know that as I practice on this loner, he too is building the true culture as he builds me a handmade mandolin that will be mine to keep, and that will survive the fire that burns away the wood, hay and stubble.)

But, aren't there heathens that play the mandolin'? Of course. The difference between my playing and theirs may not be that on their mandolin they play The Real Slim Shady, while I, being spiritual, play that funny manna song from Keith Green. The difference is in the intent, that my goal is to show forth the teauty of God with the music. The difference between the city of God and the city of man isn't that one is a city and the other isn't. The difference is that while one exalts man, the other exalts God. In the city of man we watch others so that we may glorify them. In the city of God we perform for God, that He might be glorified. [Editor's Note: any similarity to issues relating to seeker sensitive worship are purely intentional.]

Which tells us, in turn, exactly what it is we seek to be distracted from when we trot down to Vanity Fair. We are not trying ultimately to escape from our labor. We are not trying simply to forget about our troubles and woes. Instead we, like Adam and Eve behind the bushes, are trying to hide from God. We are trying to escape His gaze. We are trying to forget that we are His. We are once again, fools.

Which tells us in turn what the antidote is, what it is we need. What we want to invest our time in is not harmful distractions, but helpful attentions. We need not to broaden our focus, but to narrow it, to keep, as Pilgrim was called to do, our eyes upon the prize. Which, of course, is not at all the Celestial City, but He who rules there.