Navigating an Immoral Sea

By Ken Laue

The sinking of the mighty ship Titanic almost a hundred years ago has captured the imagination our culture. 

A vast number of websites are dedicated to the subject. The movie was a hit, and the exhibit is in my hometown Tucson as I write.

But most people still don’t understand the message of the Titanic.

Those were heady times back then, as they are now. At the turn of the last century civilization was riding the tsunami of major engineering achievements.

Major dams and reservoirs were built. Around the time Arizona became a state in 1912, Roosevelt Dam was built and named for our renowned President Teddy Roosevelt and the Salt River and its tributaries began filling it.

The United States was finishing one of the grandest man-made marvels, the Panama Canal. Besides being an engineering phenomenon which required dams and reservoirs to fill the locks, and mountains to be carved through at the continental divide, it took the genius of American science and medicine to conquer the scourge of yellow fever before workers could even survive the climate.

It ultimately saved multiple thousands of ships from having to go thousands of miles around South America. 

The automobile was crawling out of infancy and roaring into adolescence while airplanes were under rapid advancement after the Wright Brothers’ crude beginnings.

The crown it all off came the magnificent ocean liners like the Titanic – a vessel so luxurious and marvelous from a design so perfected that it was heralded as unsinkable – even by God Himself (or so some were alleged to have bragged).

Indeed, that was the Golden Age of engineering, as alterations to the natural world grew in scope and vision.

But God was often not included in the equation, much as it is in our own times.

Give men some major coup or achievement, and the Nebuchadnezzar factor kicks in.  Remember Neb? He was the great king in the Bible who built his grand empire all by himself. He didn’t need God’s help; no, not him. 

So God turned him into a wild beast for a few years until he finally realized he didn’t have it all together (see Daniel Chapter 4).

Too bad the captain, builders and crew of the Titanic didn’t remember their childhood Bible stories.

They might have learned something from our pal, Neb: Watch out, dudes, God doesn’t dig being “dissed.” He gets offended when people try to navigate without His input.  When people try to bend all the rules. When they ignore all warnings.

The shipwreck of the Titanic was very avoidable, as is the sinking of families in our day.

A little ol’ iceberg was all it took to send the invincible luxury liner on a detour to Davey Jones’ Locker! 

A little more respect for God’s laws of physics and for His person, a little more care to navigating in perilous waters and to other mariners’ warning of icebergs in the shipping lane, and a tragic loss of lives could have been avoided.

It is recorded that the ship’s chief radio officer became so peeved by other ships’ continual calling to warn of floating ice in Titanic’s path that he finally sent an angry message: “Shut up, I’m busy!”

Some writers and commentators have said that God sank the ship in retribution for the claims supposedly made that not even He could sink her. 

But in reality God tried to save the ship, in my opinion, by sending warnings from other ships, which Titanic ignored.

The sea our generation is navigating is an immoral one full of peril.

But we’re the brilliant ones now. With all our wonderful techno-toys, computers, Blackberries, GPS’s, and fancy SUV’s, we think we’re unsinkable.

There is little respect for the sacrifices, achievements and warnings of our forefathers.  All the while our families and society are grating against dangerous icebergs in our own cold northern sea.

But casualties are so unnecessary because our Captain has provided us with proper compasses, instruments and charts. Including locations of lurking icebergs. 

Consider the Bible; or the voices shouting out warnings. The Billy Grahams, Luis Palaus, James Dobsons, countless Bible preachers and pastors all around us.

Not to mention the born-again Christian God has placed on our street, at our school or at our job site. 

Driving kids to and from school in a big yellow bus and getting to know many of them is an eye-opener. 

I see the wreckage caused by many icebergs all around me, and long to give others the navigating tools I have.

Take middle-schooler Darren, for instance. He lives in a neighborhood about twelve long miles from the middle school he attends. I’d grown used to him laughing it up and socializing with his bus buddies. 

Recently I saw him walking down the bus bay sidewalk with all the non-bussed neighborhood kids.

“Hey, Darren, where ya goin’? The bus is over here,” I yelled at him.

“To my dad’s house.”

“Oh, you mean he lives around here?”

“Yeah, less than a mile from here.” 

He said he’d be back on the bus again next week when he goes back to mom’s. 

Since then I discovered several others who bounce between bus stops or even ride different routes sometimes because of separated parents.

Then there was Denkin. Because my bus is packed out, and seats assigned, I could not grant his request to sit in the back with the other eighth graders. 

Also, because he was “different” from the other boys, as far as reduced maturity and vulnerability, I figured the back of the bus would be a bad experience for him. 

Besides, I couldn’t re-do my entire seating chart just for him. I couldn’t understand why he was having so much heartburn over it but I kept denying his request. 

Finally one of his parents called in to complain about the bus driver who wouldn’t listen to her boy’s reasonable request. 

Out of that interaction I learned that not only was Denkin a special education student (as suspected), but that the mom who had called was only one of his two moms.

He was being raised by a same-sex couple. 

From the driver’s seat I can see many families in our society are navigating boldly and blindly, like a Titanic captain, ignoring all the warnings, compasses, instruments and charts God has given us. 

Too many times the kids are the unfortunate wreckage of this poor navigation.

I can see it from both sides and I thank God that my daughters were raised in an intact, "normal” family.

While our marriage has not been without turbulence, problems, and even need of counseling, our individual commitment to Christ has been the compass that kept us off the icebergs for the last thirty-six years.

I see the Children’s Church kids I work with coming out of Christian homes, growing up in the shelter of saved parents and the church body.

There are some exceptions, to be sure, but I don’t see the amount of wreckage on the sea bottom as I see from unchurched and unsaved families whose kids ride my bus.

A key to reducing those shipwrecks is forming relationships. You and I as Christians know where the icebergs and shoals are. 

Getting others interested in learning how to properly navigate isn’t always easy. 

Often they won’t listen to us until we have formed some kind of relationship or credibility in their eyes first. At that point they’re more likely to receive.

To be sure, sometimes we have to shout at strangers when they are about to slam the boat of their lives into an iceberg or step out in front of a spiritual semi doing eighty-five.

Not all respond like the Titanic radioman. That’s why outreaches and preaching continue to be vital works of the church.

In all manners and means we endeavor to teach those around us how to navigate in a cold immoral sea.

People in our daily lives usually need the soil of relationship to be reached. We labor in prayer and in good deeds and witness.

No, in spite of our awesome technology exploding marvelously all around us, we are not as wonderful as we think. 

Even arrogant King Neb learned he needed God. 

But those of us who learn how to sail dangerous waters with our Captain Jesus Christ at the helm find life to be very wonderful indeed.