Shaping the “Trampoline Factor”
By Dennis Peacocke

Trampolines are fun, as every kid who ever played on one knows. You push down on the surface by jumping on it, and it will spring you back up higher than you pushed down. The extra push up feels like you are being catapulted by the trampoline, hence it’s called the “trampoline effect” or factor. Similar to Newton’s law that states, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” this phenomenon tends to work in the realm of social dynamics as well as the realm of natural physics. How we treat people usually causes them to eventually “push back” on us in a way similar to, however we pushed on them.

It’s amazing to examine the social effects of the “trampoline factor” in world history once you begin to see it. While there are a number of examples we could look at, for us here in America, one contemporary example is clearly seen. It’s the “trampoline effect” of slavery. Once systemically pushed into relative obscurity and thoroughly marginalized in terms of cultural relevance, African Americans have “bounced back” to a startling degree. Previously obscured and condemned to the shadows of culture, today African Americans essentially control the youth culture in America and beyond in terms of music, dress, and slang.

White kids who know nothing of the black experience seek to emulate it to a level of virtual caricature. Hip-hop rules and “cool” ain’t preppy, straight, or reason-based. In short, the effect of blacks in America in terms of culture, sports, and entertainment is multiple times beyond their sheer numbers of roughly twelve percent of the population.

Another “law” also exists; the law of “unintended consequence.” What that means for example, is that repressing or mistreating people causes them to achieve new levels of importance when they bounce back up. The previous example of slavery-to-trend setting by the African Americans serves us as a living example of the law of unintended consequences. Pharaohs’ mistreatment of the Jews, which led to their exodus, is another obvious example of this phenomenon.

So where am I going with this? The secularization of Western culture, pushing down on the trampoline of the foundations of its Judeo-Christian roots, is going to create a “catapult” cultural effect springing upward as spiritual values take on a “disproportionate” amount of cultural influence and concern. Seeing this coming, fore-shadowed by its obvious emergence now evident in our nation’s presidential debates, my heart’s cry is to see that “trampoline effect” shaped with a level of depth and lasting power impossible to attain if the “spiritual values” are simply shaped by political posturing and hollow phrases bereft of genuine action.

What got us here on the trampoline was increasing amounts of cultural Christianity with the power to inoculate us more than to infect us with the real thing. That must not happen again. As we enjoy this celebration of Christ coming to His earth some two thousand years ago, let us beseech Him that His people get enough of Him to truly transform things here-and-now and not just enough of Him to “get saved” in the future. If we don’t, our superficiality will continue to bounce us all along together, and that’s...