I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. -- John 12:46
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Because our discussion about current political issues was cut a bit short on Saturday, I don't think I brought my last thought to an obvious conclusion. I'll try to do that here.
Why is the point important that one cannot have an ultimate negative? (i.e. – anytime one speaks of a negative it necessarily implies the existence of the positive of that negative, but not vice versa – you can have a 7 w/o a -7, but you cannot have a -7 w/o a 7) This needs to be kept in mind in any discussion, but I was speaking about the idea that has generally taken hold in our history that the democratic ideal is a 'secular society', that is, it must remain completely neutral to taking sides with any religious, moral or metaphysical philosophy (i.e. - anything that speaks beyond the material realm to an 'unseen' realm). This is a perfectly natural conclusion for the empirical philosophy which is the rule of the day. Empirical knowledge has its place, but it is limited to the material realm, and is highly deficient for establishing a comprehensive worldview. Everything about life requires a positive presence, or purpose. This concept comes from the Greek word 'telos' (i.e. - purpose, destiny, goal, end point) It is where we derive the term 'teleology'. Anything that doesn't generate positive life movement rusts, disintegrates, decays and corrodes. It becomes covered over by that which does have life. We could flesh this out with many examples which I won't belabor here. A common quip you will hear is that 'nature abhors a vacuum (or void)'. Humans naturally prefer the idea of 'live and let live', because we all want to do what we want to do without being bothered. This pretty much translates into a 'secular' setting that allows everyone to believe and do what they want. But when disagreements come up, people necessarily fall into talk about what is OK/not OK, right/wrong, good/bad. C.S. Lewis' whole point in 'Mere Christianity' was – you cannot even speak about these kinds of issues without acknowledging the existence of a universal invisible moral law. It is logically impossible. (Read it if you haven't!) This realization is what brought that atheist to Christ. If there is a universal moral law, then it is impossible to avoid its consequences, and necessary to understand it and respect it the best we can. On the surface it seems to make sense that we can just set up a 'secular' society if we want. But in reality, human beings crave purpose, and a society craves a purpose beyond the present – one to live for, build for, and pass to the next generation. Without this, fallen human nature devolves into selfish 'live for today' hedonism, loses purpose, motivation, and descends into a suicidal self-cannibalizing condition. People as a whole will not stand for this. They will not long endure a neutral 'everything is OK' mode once they sense where it is leading. They will crave leadership with positive purpose, strength, and direction to fill that void. The anarchists of the French Revolution led to → Napoleon as dictator, The Bolshevik anarchists → Soviet dictatorship, Germany's post-WW1 collapse → Nazi dictatorship. By positive leadership I don't mean necessarily 'righteous' leadership as you can see by these examples. I simply mean some force that steps into a leaderless void and says 'follow me – I will end the chaos and lead you to a great vision and purpose'. This leadership can be good (a la our founding fathers) or it can be bad. At our founding, the Christian consensus was so strong, the people of the day just assumed it as the basis for our moral code and laws. The early documents and writings show this extensively. It produced government for the will of the majority (Protestant Christians), but with protections for minority groups (Jews, Catholics, Deists, etc.) For reasons I won't get into here, the Christian consensus has severely eroded since WW2. It takes time for the effects to manifest, but we are smack dab in the middle of the 'uneasy' period, the void, where the social order is intuitively clamoring for a solid sense of purpose to lock onto. The Marxists sense this and are eager to fill it. The Muslims sense this and are working to fill it. The elite globalists are desperately working to seize it and fill it. Even though the Catholics are our friends now, with enough opportunity I have no doubt, based on centuries of evidence, that they would take over as well. My point is that, like it or not, once we are weak enough, some group with a sufficiently cohesive identity and 'positive' message will step into the void and seize the reins of leadership. People at large – even many who disagree with the conquering group – will feel that this is better than 'nothing', because it at least provides some structure and security to end the social disintegration and chaos. Therefore we must reawaken to the reality that America was born, in its ethical, legal and cultural identity, as a Christian nation, uniquely predisposed to not impose any specific form of that on other people by force, as did the state churches of Europe. (We know conversion by force doesn't work spiritually, anyway). Still, America gained the great benefits of firmly embracing those values in a sufficiently broad way. But we must see that if we don't revisit this and reassert the positive moral, legal and cultural essence of the historic Judeo-Christian world view, then something else will impose its own worldview. To this point in history, plenty of other ideologies have offered themselves as a replacement. To this point, the ones that are strong enough and determined enough to fill the leadership void, have a very clear and documentable trail of creating hell on earth as evidence of what they will bring to America if they are able to succeed. Over the weekend I was actually stunned to see the outpouring of vigils and gatherings all over the world in honor of Charlie Kirk – and also, I think, for Ilyna. I see the hand of God here, frankly. He spared Trump twice, once by a millimeter. There are many ways God could have diverted the bullet for Charlie as well. But that bullet detonated a cultural atomic blast now reverberating around the world, igniting a massive coalescing of people (young people especially) who now clearly see who and what the Left is. They have been powerfully convinced to join the ranks of the nationalist, populist, conservative point of view. It is reminiscent of the circumstances that exploded the spread of Christianity in the first place. I think we are seeing the American renewal that I am talking about transpiring before our very eyes. It can still be hijacked. You can hear the screeching and howling of every stripe of demonic jackal closing in on all sides. It is a time to throw weight behind the forces most likely to bring America back to our original foundation. The MAGA movement has energized the only really viable option for this that I have seen in my lifetime. The political process is never quick, easy or perfect. It just comes down to siding with the group that is moving toward the light instead of the dark – moving us toward 'a more perfect union' as the Declaration of Independence states. That choice rarely comes clearer than it has right now.
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At one time in my life this question was very easy to answer. My identity consisted of my name, who my parents were, where I grew up, went to church and went to school. Along with a few special interests that pretty much summed it up. When I met someone new I could easily tell them who I was in less than five minutes, and them, likewise with me.
It had occurred to me, though, that some kids were a little reserved when I tried to find out even a little bit about them. These were kids who, I came to learn, were from broken homes, foster care, unwed mothers (who had disappeared for a few months before returning to school), guys that were beginning to think of themselves as gay, and so on. In other words, they had already experienced complicating factors that made their lives different from what was considered ‘normal’. I’m sure they saw the deeper implications of this question much sooner than I. But in reality, the ‘normal’ pattern does not last very long in anyone’s life. We all move ahead into varying choices that lead to paths that are increasingly different from anyone else’s. We go to different colleges, study different majors, take different classes within those majors, elect to participate in differing extra-curricular activities, go to work for different companies, live in different places, marry people from an entirely different set of circumstances. Before you know it we each have become a very unique individual. In reality every one of us were quite unique at birth based on many physical, emotional and circumstantial characteristics, but we typically don’t become aware of those complexities until we begin to grow into the maturity of early adulthood. I think it is likely that everyone comes to a realization point in life that trying to seriously tell someone who you are entails quite a long conversation. So our uniqueness is both born within us and grows out of a vast array of changing life experiences. But is there anything about me that is, or should be a constant? Is there anything that does gives me a solid, unchanging point of reference for my identity? We have a hunger and need for this. While we all love to have a measure of variety in our lives, we also want to come ‘home’ at the end of the day to a place that is constant, comfortable and familiar. It is the same with our identity as individuals. In the midst of what seems an infinity of choices, paths and experiences, we still want to lock onto a basic sense of ‘this is who I am’. The recently popularized concept of ‘normalcy bias’ reinforces our need for a level of constancy in our environment and identity. This is the predisposition we all have to prefer what we are used to over situations that are unfamiliar. For a lot of people, this sense of a constant identity revolves around their career, their family reputation if they are prominent in the community, their participation in a social group of some sort, or even a sports team. This works for awhile, because these things change much more slowly. However, change they do, as older generations can attest. In fact, everything about human existence eventually changes, and can leave us without what we thought was a solid sense of who we are in life and in the universe. A humanistic point of view, whatever glories it may showcase in the vast array of life experiences and accomplishments, is, in the end, finite. Every single component in the human experience of life either changes or ends except for one thing. “I am the Lord, I change not”, the Bible tells us in Malachi 3:6. Eternality and infinity are essential to the very definition of God. As your father, this is where I have perhaps the most concern for you at this stage of life. The world seems vast, new and full of wonders to be explored and experienced. It is so full that from a human perspective, should everything continues to go well, preoccupation with the ‘stuff’ of the world around us can be engaging enough for many lifetimes. It is the group of my friends that I mentioned earlier, however, that exposes the other side of this picture. Life for some starts out with difficulties and can be filled with the kinds of painful and sorrowful experiences that drives them to search, not for ways to enjoy life, but for ways to survive it. They are driven quickly to questions like, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ and ‘Why do such bad things happen to some people?’ If the truth is known, it is likely that no one lives very long without enough pain to begin to ask these questions. Our message as Christians is that in spite of the vastly variable complexities and possibilities of life, there is one central point that establishes our identity. That is made clear in this verse; “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12) God is the infinite constant in this vast universe, and we are invited into that identity. When we are spirit-born as children of God we gain a place that is as infinitely secure and unshakeable as God Himself. It would have been nice, perhaps, to have been born into a wealthy or prominent family. The sense of identity, position, place and power that comes with that is accompanied by many perks in life. You would have felt a bit of a ‘glow’ when people recognized who you were. A driving and central point of Christianity, however, is that life, for all its wonders, pleasures and possibilities is temporary. This makes the Christian message sound like a downer to rich people. On the other hand, for people like my friends above, and ultimately for all of us, the Christian message is definitely ‘Good News’, because it says that regardless of the pain, alienation and insecurities we encounter in this life, the spirit-born have secured an unfailing and unshakeable identity in the family circle of God Himself. Along with that comes the bestowal of benefits and privileges that we now know little better than a newborn child of an earthly monarch knows what advantages lies ahead of him. Here is the main point. If we have really understood our identity as Christians, we don’t just mindlessly go about life following in the patterns of the humanist throngs all around us. Our spirit-born nature, if we truly have one, will not allow us to be at peace with that. When we grasp the significance of what this reality means, we want to embrace and live out our identity in this world to please the One who provided it for us, and to make known to the throngs around us that they can have it too. We don’t have to be kooky or weird. But it does mean that we will inevitably be different because we have a different inborn nature. It is our character and behavior that speaks ‘infinity’ to the unavoidably ‘finite’ world around us. That may lead to us being appreciated or ostracized --- loved or hated. But once spirit-born, we will never find a satisfying sense of identity within the world of finite life, because we have by nature become infinite. “Who I am” is the one central issue a believer will come back to to get his orientation and bearings for where he stands and what he should do. Growing into this identity is not always a blissful experience. It can be excruciatingly difficult, confusing and frustrating, because internally we know who we are but in so many ways we see that we ‘aren’t’. Sometimes we find a Christian fellowship that is encouraging and inspiring to us, which really helps warm up the path. Sometimes that doesn’t seem to be available. But this identity is not primarily established by having a great fellowship of ‘cool’ believers we like being associated with. Our identity is ‘child of God’, and we follow Jesus -- sometimes alone -- to grow into that identity more and more as time goes on. The path He leads us through may be bright or dark, even the ‘valley of the shadow of death’, but the essential thing is to embrace and honor our true identity at every turn of the path. I will always be very happy to learn of all the new and interesting things that come about in each of your lives. But I hope that when all is said and done, that each of you has captured a sense of the primacy of eternal identity. After I started writing these thoughts I heard a song for the first time that states this concept in a way that I think really brings the point home. Let me share it with you here in a link to it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8&list=PLAJcao20jEEJCY60qoR9u5xO414V9qVpY&index=2&t=0s When I graduated from college, I decided to reward myself with a really nice sound system. It wasn’t top of the line, but it was very nice, up-to-the-minute technology -- the best I could afford. I was never a real ‘techie’, but did become intrigued with splicing and editing audio, very excited about the new possibilities of transferring all my LP vinyl albums to conveniently portable cassette tapes.
The pace of technological change had not yet become fully apparent, because it was still happening rather slowly. Any new invention, such as the cassette tape would become gradually accepted, established and then last for a good while. It was still easy to fall into the mindset that the latest new invention was the grand culmination of everything that had been developed before it, and would be the standard from then on. There must be something in the human mindset that makes us think this way. I've heard it said that the U.S. Patent Office director at the turn of the 20th century suggested that the Patent Office might soon need to be disbanded, ‘since everything that could be invented had already been invented.’ The. Beginning. Of. The. 20th.Century! Anyway, my new sound system set me up with one of the best available Dual turntables, a quality Sony cassette deck and a very nice power amp and speaker system. I invested more than I would usually spend, justifying it by knowing how well I would take care of it, and that it would last me pretty much ‘from now on’. I had no idea that Intel had just developed its famous microprocessor and that within 10 years a full-blown digital revolution would be underway making Compact Discs the standard audio technology. It is now 45 years later, and CDs have almost totally been replaced by direct digital audio file and streaming technology. The wonders of digital technology are spinning out like clouds from a category 5 hurricane and we are on the verge of tsunamis from more new technologies such as biometrics, quantum computing and nanotechnology. These will hit younger generations the same way technological changes in my lifetime have hit me. Now, here’s the interesting thing. Alvin Toffler’s book, Future Shock came out in 1970, the same year I graduated from high school. The title grabbed my attention and the book fascinated me. His thesis was that every new invention spawned several other new inventions, and each wave of new inventions was happening in less time than the ones before them. Technology was developing exponentially, and because of this, humans would have an increasingly difficult time absorbing and adjusting to the new technology before newer technologies were on the scene for them to have to deal with. Therefore the culture would begin to experience a kind of ‘shock’ effect which would manifest in distressing ways. I had read the book. It made sense to me. We were already in the midst of this accelerating change, and yet I was very slow to really ‘see’ it and adjust to it. This is called ‘normalcy bias’ -- the fact that we all want what we are familiar with to continue, and therefore we tend to be change-resistant. When I think about what has transpired in my own lifespan, it includes: Television, color television, many stages of camera and film types up to digital image technology, interstate highways and vastly wider car ownership (it was common for families to have only one), air travel superseding train and bus travel and moving from propeller driven to jet flight, orbiting satellites, human space travel, moon landing, typewriting to word processing, yucky, messy mimeograph machine printing to Xerox copying, faxes and inkjet printers, land-line corded phones to cordless and cell phones, personal computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets and the whole Internet phenomenon. This is a very condensed list that could be greatly expanded. By extension, I heard first-hand about some of my parents’ and grandparents’ memories of technological development in their lifetimes. My grandfather’s birth coincided with the invention of the airplane and the first affordable automobile. My dad was in the Army Air Corps which is what existed before the U.S. Air Force was even an idea. I knew them. It couldn’t have been that long ago. It is said that Erasmus was the last man who was able to master all of the knowledge of Western Civilization before it became too much for any one man to know. Since that time there has been a very slow but steady increase in knowledge until the exponential nature of the growth curve began to become obvious in the mid-20th century. There is both a positive and negative side to this expansion of knowledge. But aside from what elements of it are good or bad, Toffler’s observations are helpful to reflect upon in terms of how our lives are impacted by the volume and velocity of change, let alone its content. I’ve written these thoughts just to give you a window into the changes I have encountered in my life and help you feel them if you let yourself reflect just a bit on how life must have been before each change and what it was like for people to assimilate these changes in their own lives. Even though the world I have described to you sounds bizarre and you take the digital world as a given, I suspect you are already noticing how the world you have become used to is changing right under your feet. I wonder what would be on a list of changes you have already noticed happening? |
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