Have you ever heard of the term “entropy”? Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “entropy” as “the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity.” Okay. More simply, though, entropy measures the natural movement in Nature of order to disorder. Without the input of energy to establish and maintain order, everything in Nature moves toward disorder (and this can be scientifically proven by looking into any adult male’s sock drawer). 

This is not just a physical law, for it also applies to our spiritual life, i.e, “spiritual entropy.” If we neglect to take time to examine the state of our soul, to repent, pray, worship, meditate on God’s Word, and to love, this neglect will become the state of our soul. Without the willful input of energy and effort, through the aid of grace, our spiritual lives can quickly move from order to disorder.

I thought of this reflection (from my latest book) last night as I dozed off and on during Seattle’s whomping of the New England Patriot’s (whom I was rooting for, given my years of romping along the New England coast). 

I know I’m just an old guy, way past my prime—my opinions nothing more than the accidental spark from what remains of “the little gray cells”, as Hercule Poirot might say. But last night’s Super Bowl battle was a great example of entropy. I don’t mean the battle between the far-too-highly-paid football squads, but the half-time battle between Bad Bunny and the Turning Point USA cadre of musicians. To me, entropy was clearly illustrated by not one versus the other, but by both.

I didn’t watch Bad Bunny because I knew it would be bad, and the majority of the reports I’ve read say it was worse, particularly because you couldn’t understand a word he said. So, I watched the highly touted “alternative” half-time show, and was sadly disappointed. I mean, seriously—I couldn’t understand a word of what the first three singers “sang” either. I accept that I’m “old school”, but I still find it hard to consider “rap” as a form of music. Do you know where the name “rap” came from? Supposedly, years ago, when an aging but wise old Jazz singer in New Orleans, who couldn’t pronounce the letter “c” due to a speech impediment, first heard the new “music”, he exclaimed, “That sounds like _rap!”, and the name stuck. 

And the songs of the three singers that followed may have had Christian overtones, even a scattering of Christian language, but, to me, whatever witness might have been there was far overshadowed by the “alternative” cultural expressions of the singers themselves. For so long, in our modern “alternative” expressions of Christianity, evangelization has become skewed by the aberrant philosophy of “the end justifies the means”. And every younger generation gets their nickers in a twist whenever an older generation has the audacity to point this out. The young, on-fire, spirit-filled evangelists decry, “You may not like it, but we’re not trying to reach you. We’re trying to rescue at least a few from the midst of this pagan world!”

I know this is what they say, because this is what I said back in the seventies when I was a young, on-fire, long-haired youth minister, strumming my guitar, using contemporary Christian music in the vane attempt to save at least a few souls from the grips of pagan America! 

I’m not saying this doesn’t sometimes work. God, by His grace, can use anything He wants to break through the walls of a hardened soul. Again, I know this from personal experience, but I do look back over my lifetime, from the early 1950s on through to today, seventy-plus years later, and am truly disturbed by how entropy has far too often, across our nation, around our world, and even in our Churches, won the day. Everywhere you look, in nearly every aspect of our society, we see evidence of order slowly digressing into disorder. Certainly, we can see all around us evidence of God’s merciful grace changing some hearts; in the midst of even the most devastating chaos we can see the resilient flowers of Faith, Hope, and Charity budding forth. Yes, for every dozen steps backwards, there’s always, again by grace, at least one step forward, but if you dust off your mathematician’s hat and calculate this over ten generations, this amounts to 110 steps backwards, and only 10 steps forward. This is entropy. A slow gradual, calculated, even nefarious movement towards the darkness.

I’m sure you triumphalists out there are having a conniption fit, appalled at my “unwarranted pessimism”. But this is exactly what our Lord warned would happen, which was why he wondered whether, when He finally returned, He would find faith on this earth.

The evidence of increasing entropy is not a call to pessimism, but a radical call to conversion, which means, not merely increasing a few additional steps forward for every dozen backwards, but a full, self-renouncing turning back to Christ—a surrender, even, and maybe especially, for those of us who already presume we’re solidly, safely, certainly-saved Christians.  

I’m hesitant to end this rant with a critique of Turning Point USA, for I’m sure God can “work all things together for good” through the sincere hearts behind this movement, but I see it as just another example of spiritual entropy, as evidenced also in the trajectory of most denominational churches across America, who, by their acceptance of “the end justifies the means”, have gradually, though perhaps unintentionally, watered down the Gospel by wedding it with a host of contemporary, “alternative” novelties. 

Oh, I know I’m just an old hypocrite. I’m just saying, the evidence of spiritual entropy in the world around us, and on the television screen in front of us, is a call for each of us to set aside that drink of choice and read Psalm 51, seriously, not as just a Psalm of David, but as our own heart felt prayer of confession and surrender to Christ.