Oh for a generation who stand firm for truth without compromise.
"Compromise where you can, but where you cant, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move. It is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say, NO, you move." (Founder of Shield, Peggy Carter in Captain America-Civil War) Oh for a generation who are not "tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming." (Eph 4:14). Oh for a generation who will dedicate their lives to truth, honour and freedom. "This world is an uncertain realm filled with danger, where honour is undermined by the pursuit of power; freedom is sacrificed; the weak are oppressed by the strong. But there are those who oppose these powerful forces, who dedicate their lives to truth, honour and freedom." - The Three Musketeers. Oh for a generation who know God and the testimony of God's people through the generations. "The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten..." "After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel." Judges 2:7-8, 2:10 Or put another way by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings: “The world has changed. I can feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost; for none now live who remember it.”
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The Dictatorship of Relativism Absurdity Reigns--for Now By: Eric Metaxas|Published: September 21, 2016 7:00 AM No--you haven’t lost your mind. Things really are crazy out there. And you can thank something called the dictatorship of relativism. Listen Now | Download Does it kind of feel like folks have lost their minds? That we’ve taken a collective walk through the looking glass and nothing is logical, nothing really makes sense? That you can look people square in the eye, assert a scientific, biological fact such as “if you have an x and a y chromosome and you have male sexual organs, then you are not a woman,” only to have them accuse you of being a hater or on the wrong side of history? Or take abortion. Even some of the staunchest abortion supporters admit a fetus is a baby is a human being. But that doesn’t matter, because a woman has a right to do what she wants “with her own body.” It’s sort of kooky. How have we reached this level of absurdity? Well, as I explain in a recent article at Intercollegiate Review, welcome to “the dictatorship of relativism,” which, as Pope Benedict said, “does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” As I explain in the article, I first encountered this kind of pervasive relativism as an undergraduate at Yale. I came from a working-class background, I actually believed in the truth, that it was beautiful, and worth living for and even dying for. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at Yale (whose motto is “Lux et Veritas”—Latin for “light and truth”), to find out that much of the faculty and student body didn’t believe in Truth with a capital “T”. No, there were many truths, which of course told me that there was really no truth at all. Chuck Colson said to test the validity of a worldview, follow it to its logical conclusion. The logical conclusion of relativism is absurdity. Non-sense. A worldview that undermines its own premises. Not long after I graduated from Yale, Allan Bloom wrote his famous book, “The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students.” (There’s a subtitle for you!). Bloom wrote that “almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test . . . they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4.” Bloom then tells the story of his students’ response to the Hindu custom known as sati: burning a widow alive on her husband’s funeral pyre. The British, of course, banned the custom, and sharply reminded the Hindu priests that the British had a different custom: hanging men who burned women alive. How did the students react? Bloom said his students were so steeped in relativism they could only meekly reply “that the British should have never been there in the first place.” Heaven forbid they’d admit it’s wrong to burn women alive. With relativism so deeply ensconced in our schools and culture, it’s no wonder that Christianity is increasingly viewed with a jaundiced eye. After all, Christians assert that there is a capital “T” Truth, and that we are made in His image—and that therefore every human life is precious. We dare to believe in inviolable moral laws as well—you know, like marriage is sacred and adultery is wrong. We’re kind of crazy like that. But remember this next time you feel like despairing over the trajectory of our culture: The dictatorship of relativism is built on a self-contradicting foundation of sand. The truth, as Shakespeare wrote, will out. Always. I’ve got more to say in my article “The Dictatorship of Relativism.” Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary. We’ll link you to it. Further Reading and Information The Dictatorship of Relativism: Absurdity Reigns--for NowAs Eric reminds us, relativism is built on a faulty foundation, and is self-contradictory by its very nature. To read Eric's article "The Dictatorship of Relativism Comes to the Campus" from the Intercollegiate Review, click on the link below. ResourcesThe Dictatorship of Relativism Comes to Campus Eric Metaxas | Intercollegiate Review | Fall 2016 Available at the online bookstoreThe Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students Allan Bloom | Simon & Schuster Publishers | April 2012 Courtesy: BreakPoint.org Progressively Regressive Sexuality
A Return to Pagan Morality By ERIC METAXAS Sexual progressives claim to be ushering in a “brave new world” of freedom. But their “new” morality is as old as the hills. How often have you heard sexual progressives claim that those of us who hold to traditional sexual morality and marriage are “on the wrong side of history?” But as one new book points out, it’s the proponents of the sexual revolution who are embracing a sexual morality that history left behind millennia ago—in the dusty ruins of the Roman Forum. Yes, today Western civilization is undergoing a dramatic cultural shift. In just a few short years our society has fundamentally altered the meaning of marriage, embraced the notion that men can become women, and is now promoting the idea that grown men should be welcome to share a bathroom with women and young girls. Not unexpectedly, we’re also seeing movement toward the normalization of polygamy, pedophilia, and incest. It’s precisely in times like this that we need some historical perspective. Which is why Lutheran pastor Matthew Rueger’s new book, “Sexual Morality in a Christless World,” is a timely godsend. In it, Rueger shows how Christian sexual morality rocked the pagan world of ancient Rome. The notions of self-giving love, sexual chastity, and marital fidelity were foreign, even shocking to the people of that time. Citing existing scholarship, Rueger details the Roman sexual worldview that prevailed for hundreds of years. Women and children were viewed as sexual objects; slaves—male and female--could expect to be raped; there was widespread prostitution; and predatory homosexuality was common. Christian sexual morality might have been seen as repressive by the licentious, but it was a gift from God for their victims. Rueger writes that “Claims in our day of being progressive and moving forward by accepting the ‘new prevailing views on sexuality and same-sex marriage' are horribly misinformed … Contemporary views about sexuality are simply a revival of an older and much less loving view of the world.” But they are also a revival of an older and impoverished view of human beings. Imagine the reaction of a pagan Roman slave girl who learned for the first time that she had value—not monetary value as a piece of goods to be enjoyed or discarded by her owner—but eternal value because she was made in the very image of God. Or imagine the pang of conscience felt by an unfaithful Roman husband when he learned that God became incarnate, and took on human flesh, and that how he treated his own body and the bodies of others mattered to God. Mattered immensely. Folks, we can’t look away and ignore this unholy revival of pagan sexuality and its cheapened view of human beings. But we also can’t wring our hands in fear or throw them up in defeat. As Rueger points out, Christ and His Church radically transformed a far more sexually cruel and chaotic world than ours. Look to those ancient believers who went before us: Rather than succumbing to or accommodating the spirit of the age, new converts in the early Church came to understand, as Rueger writes, that “Christian morality is based on Christ’s all-encompassing purity and self-emptying love…Christians could no longer live as the Greeks or Romans. Their worldview and self-view was distinctly different. They were now one with Christ in heart and soul.” Now, their distinctiveness, as Rueger writes, “would not spare them from suffering; it would invite suffering.” It’s pretty clear now that the same holds true for us. Will we bend the knee to this revived pagan sexuality, or will we hold out to a needy world the freedom of God’s plan for human sexuality? To get your copy of Matthew Rueger’s “Sexual Morality in a Christless World,” simply come to our online bookstore at BreakPoint.org. ADD BREAKPOINT TO ITUNES NEXT STEPS Progressively Regressive Sexuality: A Return to Pagan Morality The Christian worldview brought a revolution to the Roman culture of sexual licentiousness. There's certainly no reason to revisit that page in history, so as Eric said, let's demonstrate to our own culture God's beneficial plan for human sexuality. For further reading, click on the link below to get a copy of Matthew Rueger's book "Sexual Morality in a Christless World." RESOURCES Sexual Morality in a Christless World Matthew Rueger | Concordia Publishing House | June 2016 Other Resources Sex After Christianity Rod Dreher | The American Conservative | April 11, 2013 Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality Chuck Colson | BreakPoint.org | October 10, 2014 http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/29815 The Lost Purpose for Learning
Rooting Dualism out of Christian Education LISTEN TO TODAY'S COMMENTARY SUBSCRIBE TO BREAKPOINT DAILY By JOHN STONESTREET 6-9-16 Christian education is much more than education with longer skirts and shorter hair. Here's a Christian vision for learning. Christian Overman, who directs the Seattle-based Worldview Matters and is a commissioned Colson Fellow, believes—and I largely agree—that we’ve lost the culture because we’ve lost our schools—including, in some cases, important distinctives that make Christian schools, well, Christian. “The shaping of nations begins in the minds of children,” Chris says. “Nation-shaping ideas acquired in elementary and secondary schools are not immediately felt on a national level because it takes time for little acorns to grow into giant oaks. But grow they will.” In a new, thought-provoking e-book, “The Lost Purpose for Learning,” Chris articulates clearly what has gone awry and offers a systemic, intentional, and repeatable solution for Christian school teachers and headmasters, Sunday school workers, and other church personnel who interact with students between the ages of 4 and 18. Come to BreakPoint.org/free to get a free copy of “The Lost Purpose for Learning” to read and to share. It’s simply “must-reading” for Christians involved in education. As Christian notes, in the years before the federal government took over teaching our children, education was largely a Christian endeavor—not just in the sense that it was run by Christians, but in that it was founded on Christian assumptions about God, life, the world, and humanity. And the primary assumption was that Christ is Lord of all—not just of so-called “religious” subjects, but of everything, including biology, math, even physics. When the government took over, some Christians, such as A.A. Hodge, warned that the schools would become indoctrination centers for atheism. Well, that’s not exactly what happened, Chris says. Instead, education became “secular” and officially neutral. God went from being the center of knowledge to the periphery. Education professionals taught their subjects not as if God doesn’t exist—at least not overtly—but as if He doesn’t matter. It’s not atheism but, as one author has called it, “practical atheism,” which included something even more insidious--dualism. “A dualist,” Chris says, “is one who… doesn't make any significant connection between God's Word and what goes on in the Monday through Friday workplace because … ‘faith’ is a personal, private matter, while the workplace is public, and therefore ‘secular.’” Indeed. This sort of dualism is often quite evident in so-called “Christian” education, too. Christian education, in many schools, is little more than education with Christianity sprinkled on top. Academics, but in a safe, Christian environment. Classes, but also Bible class and chapel. Of course, environment matters, and Bible classes are necessary, but in and of themselves, they’re not enough to make an education truly Christian. Richard John Neuhaus, in his article “The Christian University: Eleven Theses,” said that the word “Christian” is not a limiting label for an institution. “Rather, it’s the starting point, the end point, and the guiding inspiration along the way.” A holistically Christian education is an education with Christian goals, with a Christian vision, with Christian pedagogy, and with a Christian understanding of who it is that we’re actually teaching. Whenever we teach the next generation, we’re stewarding souls--not biological machines or mental computers made of meat, but God’s image-bearers, who as John Calvin would say, are inherently worshipers. And so in a sense, education teaches people how to worship, and Christian education should teach people how to worship well, in every area of life. In his e-book, “The Lost Purpose for Learning,” Christian Overman correctly identifies the inherent problem of dualism. Even better, he offers solutions. Please come to BreakPoint.org/free to get your free copy. The Lost Purpose for Learning: Rooting Dualism out of Christian Education For specific ways to reclaim learning in its best form and for clarity in recognizing the dualism Dr. Overman talks about, download the free copy of his book, The Lost Purpose for Learning Chris Overman | ebook Worldview Matters website The Christian University: Eleven Theses John Richard Neuhaus | First Things | January 1996 http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/29803 From AXIS.org.au
Sign up for "The Culture Translator" 2,617 Times A Day Is it surprising to learn that that's the average number of times we touch our smartphones throughout any given day? That's about 18,000 times per week or 1,000,000 per year. Never before in the history of mankind has a single item been so intimate and ever-present. These devices have only existed for 20 years or so and only been part of our everyday lives for the last 10, yet now we can't go anywhere without them. And younger generations are only becoming more and more addicted to their devices, having never known a time when they didn't exist. But it's never too early or too late to begin modeling and creating wise smartphone habits! To help, here are 8 articles to change our perspectives on how we use and allow our children to use technology. 1. How Technology Hijacks People's Minds Consider: What was most surprising? How can I talk about these concepts with my children? 2. Reboot Your Phone with Mindfulness Consider: Which of these suggestions can I implement right now? 3. Parents' Smartphones Harming Children's Ability to Hold Conversation, Say Teachers Consider: What are 3 simple things I can change in my device habits today? 4. 13, Right Now Consider: How can I better understand the world my teens inhabit? How can I encourage them to be deep thinkers, not just controllable consumers? 5. Don't Post about Me on Social Media, Children Say Consider: What part of my digital footprint could negatively impact my children? Do I need to apologize to them for something I've done on social media? Should you ask permission before posting something about your children online? 6. Six Wrong Reasons to Check Your Phone in the Morning Consider: Are my device habits worth it? What "candy" and/or "avoidance" do I seek? If this is true for me, how is it true for my teens? 7. US Parents Largely Unaware of What Their Children Do Online, Research Finds Consider: What might I be unaware of my children doing online? How can that impact them? 8. 19 Practical, Powerful Ways to Build Social-Emotional Intelligence in Kids & Teens Consider: How does phone/screen time impede these practices? SOURCE |
Craig MannersWhile much of what is written in this Blog may currently appear to be counter-cultural, given our post-truth culture, it is in no way counter-human beings. I am always for people no matter what they think, do, or may have done in their past. Where I put forward ideas or debate against certain ideology, behaviour, ideas, movements, politics, I remain very much on the side of the human beings even though I may be opposed to their worldview, behaviour and politics. Such opposition is generally out of concern for the ultimate consequences of such behaviour or ideas, especially for children. |