Asking Questions, Hoping for Answers:

 

Is Western Culture re-aligned ?

 

The current cultural moment in the West is that the pendulum of the world clock is swinging lazily away from the 'avant-garde' left. It takes progressiveness to highlight the very few flaws and mistakes of the West. Things that needed to be addressed, were.

But the Far -left or new Left have gone too far.

Being progressive used to mean fighting for women to have equal rights, the same opportunities and ( largely) the same pay. Many women earn much more than men. The imbalance is shrinking and men have encountered perhaps for  1 or 2 decades  a narrowing of career and work opportunities similar to that experienced by Western women in earlier centuries. At least in remuneration or earnings, if not wider stripping  away of classic male-only roles and careers are being forecast by some futurists.

 

Suddenly being progressive  means fighting for the removal of " woman" as a viable and necessary  concept. 

 

Somehow  mobilising for equal rights for the tiny minority of transsexuals meant accepting that overall women's rights should be denied and rendered invisible; in favour of trans-women. This is seen by a recent court case in AU with the founder of  an exclusive website being sued by a woman for " discrimination and denial of entry." This website is a safe place which is only for females not faux females nor ambitious and predatory males.

What's occurred  in the West was a customised ruin, a kind of bespoke replacement meant to transform society but ensured damaged, even irreparable lives, trashed norms and 'unsalvagable' values.

Pressures,clarity and social correction from various insistent and persistent conservative voices has limited the sociopolitical damage to Western society. Other   forces are being brought to bear,fissures are being healed. Everyday People are relaying their concern to politicians,  corporate leaders  and other thinkers. There is a renewed commonsense approach to life in Western climes again

A resurgence of traditional norms,values and expectations have occurred.Fractures are mending with the collective voices being raised in nation after nation.

The clock  hadn't struck high noon.

Midnight has been truly averted.

"A time of crisis and disenchantment calls out for a re-thinking of who we are..." " whereby we don't collapse into cynicism and despair"

Alistair McGrath.

The richest and most complex elements of modern society are science and religion. Both are routinely looked to provide answers for the often recurrent problems in new dress and  other truly new issues.

Each separate element dazzles us with ( confrontational- at times ) solutions but are dependent on the individual's worldview to accept their offered resolution and ideological concepts.

It would seem, and in fact has,  that the influential optimism of the post global -war period has waned dramatically. 

We should, according to professor  Alister McGrath, reach the inevitable but the most unsettling and avoided question: 

what is wrong with us?

A question that many do  not wish to contemplate and most don't ask. With repeated  geo-failures, troublesome global events and shared, inherent illusions we lose our grand way and so are spiralling into chaos.

Perhaps the solution lies in asking this difficult questions but supposing there  are answers.

What is life?

" As far as we know, we're the only species on earth that asks this question, and dares to hope that we might find an answer. It seems that we are born to wonder, not merely to exist. To wonder is to reflect, to turn over in our minds what is known, to expand our imaginative capacity and to ask what greater truth and beauty might lie behind our world or beyond our settled horizons of vision....and whether they point to something deeper."

Alister McGrath.

As always, left- striving academia, causes distrust in the spaces beyond the walls of the intellectual castle, formal philosophy is still one of the most avoided academic topics but is gleefully and argued in other forms in the lives of everyday people.

These talks commence with children who need guidance in handling the difficult and puzzling world they enter. The big picture is taught which helps to make sense to others about the fundamentals of the life- journey.

Happily, parents grasped the aspects of philosophy without  needing degrees.

Aristotle earned his crown,many centuries ago and most men and women carry the tradition of reasoning and dialogue into the public and private spaces today.

The quest for meaning:

 

If you,believe as i do, you are probably aware of the 3 basic assumptions that I've stated in a previous essay entitled: Life: The Big 3.

You will find the post here:-Life: The Big 3

You could be aware of the basic belief of mine (and of many others ) about the three main assumptions  that under -gird reality?

 

I conclude that the primary element in the life -journey is "meaning",no matter how difficult or how triumphant the events of your life might be. Without meaning our lives drift,achieving haphazard aims ( with the tide of forces ) that may not be in our own best interests. 

 Overarching the entire whole life- journey is the element of "choice." One cannot not choose. Why? Making a choice or not making a choice is still choosing. One's choice may sometimes  be  not to choose.

 

The power of " Purpose" is another supreme driver.  The universal quest  of purpose which can help refine meaning and solve the issue of drifting as mentioned earlier.

 

 

  " Where professional philosophers have virtually given up about the subject of meaning, psychologists have moved on this fundamental human concern, helping us to understand meaning of its core facets, and the difference it makes, to life. We apparently  feel that we .can make a difference to things, and to take control of our lives:  but we need a sense of identity and purpose of When and Where and Who."

"When we.have traumatic experiences in life and when we experience our awareness with mortality .We, basically, as human beings actively seek to invest meanıng and seek for systems of meaning which embrace an understanding of the world,our personal significance and our capacity to transcend our limits and locations as we sense we are a part of something bigger and greater."

Alister McGrath. ( edited)

A theme in this essay is to demonstrate the importance of meaning for human flourishing.

Of necessity, life is remarkably nuanced and complex. After all we are unique ( each and everyone) and deliciously contradictory and blatantly self - absorbed.

Although I've spoken briefly about the overarching purpose and meaning of our life-journey,we intuitively know that facts and reasoning are not enough.

Thus God revealed himself,according to His Book and science discovered a glimpse of God behind the universe.

Facts are the ' raw stuff' of life: data not yet interpreted and wholly refined.

Science is man's invention owned by God. Awesome and dazzling,it is itself is a prima fascie case for the need of wisdom. Though feelings are trumped by facts, facts alone are alone.

Man's search for meaning is sometimes obscured by facts. Even though facts matter.

For example,we are aware that there are two sexes or genders alone. Somehow many individuals are seeking meaning beyond the aegis of biological sex.

Some have endeavored  to correct this horrific state of affairs in a teen's mind by altering their  biological sex  with life- changing surgeries and cross - sex chemicals!

Discovering that "affirming' this 'psychological mindset' invites,even after decades,no true solution. Some groups even seek to prevent de- transitioning of a trans-sexual or preventing a return to their original biological sex. Interference should not occur.

Facts and reasoning can create a loveless world without citizens finding their true souls,joy and fulfillment.

Perhaps this environment establishing a weary world of facts was released from its prison by that genius Ludwig Wittgenstein penning this statement:

"to believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life."

To believe in the God means to see that the facts of the matter are necessary but not the only matter.

 

 

by Digital Anvil. 

 

 

 

Making Goodness Fashionable:

Making Goodness Fashionable

One of the great figures of civic leadership and Christian ministry is William Wilberforce. He is world-renowned for leading the charge to abolish the slave trade, which was motivated by his faith in Jesus.

One of the other aims of Wilberforce's life was to "make goodness fashionable". I love that phrase! Most of us don't understand how unfashionable goodness was in 18th-century England. This was a time of widespread drunkenness of both rich and poor, of political graft and rampant prostitution. As Eric Metaxas writes, this was "a time of open debauchery in every sphere of the culture".

Making goodness fashionable was about as (un)popular then as it is now. But it is just as needed now as it was then. Can I encourage you to do all you can to make goodness fashionable?

Share this daily- reading.

Agreed with gratitude to Karl Faase.

Myth with a Postcode:

Myth with a postcode

Martin Shaw is an author, storyteller and mythologist from Dartmoor in the UK. Shaw has a deep knowledge of the world of mythology and teaches and writes about the influence of myth.

Recently, Shaw became a Christian after a remarkable experience, and has been growing in his personal faith.

I listened to Justin Brierley interview Shaw, where he reflected on whether the story of Jesus was a myth like the others he knows of and teaches.

Shaw’s response was instructive, he said the problem with believing that the story of Jesus is a myth is that it’s a myth with a distinct postcode.

The story of Jesus took place in a specific geographical location and moment in history that can be researched, known and understood.

Jesus reflects history not mythology.

We interviewed Martin Shaw in our series, Encounter. If you'd like to hear more about Shaw, search Encounter

Share this daily- reading.

(Many thanks to Karl Faase. I'm pleased to promote the series)

War Like Time- Lapse Photography.

War Like Time-Lapse Photography

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who lived in Germany through the Second World War and was executed by the Nazis for his involvement in a plot to kill Hitler.

Bonhoeffer was a prolific writer with unusual insight. He wrote often about the scourge of war and what it shows us about humanity.

He once compared war with time-lapse photography. When you watch time-lapse photography, subtle changes that naturally occur over hours and hours, which pass unnoticed, are accentuated and made obvious.

Bonhoeffer wrote that war did the same for human behaviour. Attitudes and actions that went unnoticed were now obvious. He concluded that war did not produce these attitudes, it only revealed and emphasised them.

We can all tend to blame circumstances for our poor or excusable behaviour. Perhaps all they do is make obvious the attitudes that lie beneath the surface of our lives every day.

Circumstances won’t create your character - they reveal it. Use what is exposed to grow closer to the person God intends you to be.

Share this daily-reading

Agreed with thanks to Karl Faase.

Luke 17:

Luke 17:26-37 Bible Passage: Luke 17:26-37 Key Verse: “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.” v 30 Jesus is speaking with his disciples about the coming of God's Kingdom. We refer to this as the second coming, when Jesus will return again and establish His Kingdom.  The key in this passage is that Jesus wants His disciples to know and us to know, is that we won’t know the time. It will come when it’s least expected. Jesus gives two examples His listeners would know, Noah and the flood, Lot and the city of Sodom. In both circumstances, destruction would arrive via both the flood and fire when everyone was just getting on with life. The key theme is that you can’t know the time, so always be ready. This is true of the second coming but it is also true of life in general. None of us knows what today or tomorrow will bring. We are all a heartbeat from disaster. That can be a health, relational, financial, or situational crisis. They are usually totally unexpected. Nudge: If that is the case, be ready in all of life. Live well, love people around you, forgive and move on, don’t hold grudges. Life is too short to live with anger and resentment. We all pray that disaster won’t strike today, but knowing it might, be prepared in every part of life. Share this daily- reading. (Agreed with many thanks to Karl Faase)

Christian Morality, Pagan Sexuality and The Epstein Files :

The Epstein Files, Pagan History, and Christian Morality

Years ago, before Epstein, the #MeToo movement, or even same-sex “marriage,” talk show host and Jewish theologian Dennis Prager wrote a fascinating article called “Judaism’s Sexual Revolution.” In it, he described how the pagan world was a sexual free-for-all that debased women and children in the service of male lust. Nearly every aspect of life was sexualised. The pagan gods engaged in no-holds-barred sex, and so did the people. As philosopher Martha Nussbaum, quoted by Prager, wrote, children and women were “very often treated interchangeably as [simple] objects of [male] desire.” 

The very same awful treatment of God’s image bearers is on display again in the revelations emerging from the Epstein files. An incredible number of victims were trafficked and abused. An incredible number of evildoers were involved. A bunch of powerful people worked to keep it all hidden. That so much evil could have continued for so long staggers the imagination. 

A remarkable difference today is that, unlike pre-Christian pagan societies, such behavior is considered evil rather than normal. That’s because the claim that God created sex only for a man and a woman in marriage was so revolutionary. As Prager wrote,  

"This revolution forced the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, it heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and it began the arduous task of elevating the status of women." 

As Christianity, which shared the Genesis account of creation, grew and expanded in influence, it collided with Roman paganism, which also victimized women and children. Except for some in the elite class, Roman women were often treated worse than Roman cattle. Even upper-class women were little more than possessions, and when it came to sexuality, they were at their husband's beck and call and could be disposed of at will. 

Slave women, who were a full third of Rome’s female population, could expect beatings and rape. The “fortunate” ones were sold into prostitution. Unwanted girls were left to die of exposure. 

Into that world came Christianity, specifically the writings of St. Paul. As historian Sarah Ruden wrote in her 2010 book, Paul Among the People, to call Paul an “oppressor of women,” as modern scholars do, could “hardly be more wrong.”: 

"It is profoundly ignorant to think of the Apostle Paul as a sour proto-Puritan descending upon happy-go-lucky pagan hippies, ordering them to stop having fun.” On the contrary, “Paul’s teachings on sexual purity and marriage were adopted as liberating in the pornographic, sexually exploitive Greco-Roman culture of the time . . ." 

Christianity “worked a cultural revolution,” Ruden wrote, “restraining and channeling the male Eros, elevating the status of both women and of the human body, and infusing marriage—and marital sexuality—with love.” In Ruden’s words, Christian ideas about marriage were “as different from anything before or since as the command to turn the other cheek.” 

“No wonder,” Prager wrote, that the “improvement of the condition of women has only occurred in Western civilization.” It is also no wonder that biblical sexual morality was so despised by the ancient pagans in power. Not because it robbed them of “fun,” but because they could no longer rationalize their predations. 

Of course, modern pagans also despise Christian sexual morality, but they are also forced to borrow from it as they condemn the kind of horrific treatment of women and children revealed in the Epstein files. The “uncomfortable truth about the Epstein accusations,” as Paul Anleitner posted on X, is that… 

"We only find them morally reprehensible because of Christianity. 

"Before the spread of Christianity, “civilized” Greek and Roman elites openly flaunted underage s*x slaves. This was normal. Emperor Hadrian built an entire city in honor of his favorite boy. We’ve heard for decades that Christianity is a barrier to moral progress, but if you undercut the moral foundations of Christianity from the West, culture reverts back to pagan norms."

That is why it’s so tragic when Christians abandon the clear, life-giving vision of human sexuality that liberated the pagan world. Yet that’s what many have done, even thinking themselves “loving” and “tolerant” in the process. It is, in fact, cruel—not loving—to withhold truth from broken people in a confused culture. 

And that is not our only betrayal. To protect churches, Christian institutions, and favored leaders, Christians have often turned a blind eye to, or even covered up abuse, harassment, or worse happening within. That’s a betrayal of people made in the image of God, as well as of the Truth that can set them—and us—free. 

In other words, the correct response to our failure to live up to the biblical vision of human dignity is not to pat ourselves on the back for that vision. Rather, it is to confess our own hypocrisy and to repent of our own sins. No matter who is implicated in this horror, we should pray that, as Jesus said, “there is nothing hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”  

We should also pray that the long, continued, evil efforts to keep these files hidden will fail, and that God will bring justice that is long overdue. Finally, we should, as professor Paul deHart posted on X, “Thank God that pagan morality was overthrown.” If it had not been, there would be no movement to reveal this evil, punish the evildoers, and offer the victims justice.

 

 

(Agreed: Digital Anvil) 

Again,if you have an alt view or comment,please do so?

[To my readers,I would like to be able to write like the above but when I come across such quality essays, I post, even though I dont know who authored it.]

 China/Iran Revolutions and the White Robed Stranger:

 

  This may surprise

It's been said that China may be an unofficial Christian nation in the next 30 years. 

Iran's underground church is similarly poised to be a Christian nation majority by the next 35 years as some estimates go! Some sooner,some later!

Estimates vary from 100 million to 400 million of believing followers in the current state in China! We owe much of that to Hudson Taylor, the English missionary among others.

As the underground church in China continues to grow, efforts to suppress it seem only to fertilise its growth instead.

I've seen similar smuggled-out documentaries about the underground church in Iran whereby a senior cleric confessed that they've had to close 50,000 mosques out of 75,000 total there. 

Either nation is mirroring each other in their response to significant forces and changes within. 

What began as isolated anecdotes about Iran ( and other Middle East nations ) years ago with many residents talking of visions/ dreams of a white robed figure explaining who He is. The shimmery white figure would state that he was Jesus 'whom you are yearning for' during the watches of the night. Even a website had been created reportedly in Canada asking respondents to tell their story.

Of nocturnal visits from the white robed stranger in some Muslim countries.

The paradigm shifts in  these countries are  more realised with each passing decade.

(This message was originally written months ago, but it is only posted now. )

(Opinion and fact by Digital Anvil.)