In one of

Sunday's newspapers, Ho Jin, now a professor at Emory,

reflected on the meaning of Tiananmen Square massacre and

asked what he called a "forbidden question." He

asked, "Does an individual's value have to be

determined by a nation, which in essence is a large

herd?"

With little

evidence to refute it, China's basic position is that man

was made for the state, not the state made for man. It

has stuck in my mind since I was a small boy that my

mother told me about the building of the Great Wall of

China. That when a wall worker slipped and fell, other

workers would simply cover him with dirt - dead or

alive. It just meant that much less dirt needed to fill

up the parallel walls. Individual life then and now was

worth no more than a couple of wheelbarrow loads of dirt.

The

question that formed in my mind as I read Ho Jin's

article pointed in the direction of the "herd"

mentality in our nation. How much of our values are

created and directed by the national herd? Do we have

identities apart from the herd?

Personally

I admire the person at the front of the herd, but it's so

disheartening to see everyone else mindlessly following.

Think about "Tommy." It's getting so that

thousands and thousands of people seemed to be named

Tommy. The Tommy herd gallops through schools and work

places and says if it's not Tommy, too bad. You're

nobody. Because anyone who is somebody has Tommy tattooed

on their every stitch of clothing.

Think about

the perfectly manicured lawn herd. It used to be that a

man in a truck would come and spray your house for bugs.

Now a man in a truck comes to spray your lawn. Because

green and grass are in; brown and weeds are out. One

perfect but totally un-American lawn intimidates the rest

of us so that we have to call up the man for chemical

spray job (the manicured lawn idea didn't originate in

the States, but in Europe among the upper classes).

Think about

the hair herd. Rather than wearing your hair your way,

you want to wear it her or his way. Think about the SUV

herd. Has it been made a law that everyone has to have

one?

Let me end

with a mini-sermon. Jesus said, "If therefore the

Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed"

(John 8:36). Free not to follow the herd. Free to develop

in the wondrous creativity and excitement that God

ordained in the first place.

Authentic

Christianity is not about cookie-cutter assembly line.

It's about each individual growing and developing beyond

the status seekers with their labels and logos. It's

about casting down idols of class and station in life.

It's about rising above even the state and denouncing it

when the state subjugates individual values.

From where

do you derive your identity? Your beach house, your

mountain retreat, your designer clothes, your political

party, your church, or your family. How about an identity

that begins in the heart of God?

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