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Society (21)
We live in an age where there is a false glare on the things of time, and a great mist over the things of eternity.Old Paths, 22
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end: first, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence); second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be among countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation); third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased desire to live off the state. It all sounds so familiar. We have come a long road since our first chapter, and we are back in Rome.How Should We Then Live
As the memory of the Christian consensus which gave us freedom within the biblical form increasingly is forgotten, a manipulating authoritarianism will tend to fill the vacuum.
The dominating principles [of the Reformation] was not, soteriologically, justification by faith, but in the widest sense cosmologically, the sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible.
If we want to enjoy those earthly goods which God has placed in this world for the benefit and use of His children, the best way to secure their enjoyment is obviously not to seek to do it individually but socially. It is a social axiom that everything that betters the condition of society as a whole increases our enjoyment of our material goods. A savage acquires a pot of gold. How shall he enjoy it? His fellow savages covet it; and who shall secure it to him? He is liable to be waylaid at night for it. Every bush hides an enemy; the poisoned arrow may fly upon him from any tree; his sleep is driven from him as he seeks to protect his life. Hidden by friendly darkness he may bury his treasure under some great tree in the tangled forest; and anxiously guard its neighbourhood lest he may have been watched and still be bereft of it. In such conditions there is no enjoyment of the treasure for him; he can enjoy only the protection of it. But, now, he is a wise savage and instead of giving his energies to protecting his treasure, he gives it to civilizing his people. Out of the savage tribe rise the rudiments of a state; the
majesty of law emerges—protecting under its powerful aegis the
person and property of its citizens. What a change! No need of hiding
the treasure now. He can wear it displayed upon his person. He now
can enjoy at least its possession. But a higher stage is still possible;
the community may be not only civilized but Christianized; Christian
principles take the place of external laws; love the place of forceFaith and Life
Such is the appointed end of every political or religious system that ignores God and His truth, and seek after material power and prosperity as the chief objects of life. Let a nation lose her faith in God - let her drive truth, virtue, love, and righteousness from her heart and life, and what will she become? Can she become anything else than a habitation of devils? Can she become anything else but the seat and prey of demon-like passions?Biblical Illustrator: Revelation, 534
To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.How Should We Then Live, 297
History indicates that at a certain point of economic breakdown people cease being concerned with individual liberties and are ready to accept regimentation.How Should We Then Live, 284
To respond to our times we must first understand our times.
A movement that cannot or will not draw boundaries, or that allows the modern cultural fear of exclusion to set its theological agenda, is doomed to lose its doctrinal identity. Once it does, it will drift from whatever moorings it may have had in historic Christianity.
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Christians are notorious for not being self-aware. We get so entrenched in Christian culture that we don't realize that what feels normal to us may be very intimidating for someone else.Community, 139-140
Skeptics attempt to put Nothingness/Nihilism/Chance into the heart of a society's literature. Soon they discover that the absence of truth invites the rulers of the day to exercise unbridled and exclusive authority to govern according to their own folly. The abolition of truth creates a vacuum that is filled with force.This Book Changed Everything, 11
Let the heat of their lust increase my longing after that place where there is no Judas among thine apostles, no Demas among thy disciples; where all the society will be of one mouth and mind, of one heart and way; where all the company will join in concert, and the whole celestial choir tune their strings, and raise their voices to the highest pitch in sounding thine excellencies, and singing thy praises without sin or ceasing.
The stories the modern world tells us are powerful: the future-oriented promise of science, the technology that privileges the young, the materialistic paradise offered by consumerism, which is always just around the next corner, the dying of confidence in words, the fragmentation of human nature, the distrust of traditional structures and notions of authority, and the wicked results of saying that somebody else is wrong and does not belong. All of these in their different ways make the idea of doctrinal Christianity, expressed in creeds and confessions, both implausible and distasteful; and all of them are part of the cultural air we all breathe.
If the church as a whole is losing its ability to be "salt and light" in the culture, it is not because its members have no opinion of the films of Bernardo Bertolucci, no appreciation for the poetry of Emily Dickinson, and no regular slot on The Charlie Rose Show. More likely, it is because they do not have a solid grasp of the basic elements of the faith, as taught in Scripture and affirmed by the confessions and catechisms of the church.
Cultural relevance can be a cruel mistress.
The intuitive moral structure of our modern social imaginary prioritizes victimhood, sees selfhood in psychological terms, regards traditional sexual codes as oppressive and life denying, and places a premium on the individual's right to define his or her own existence. All these things play into legitimizing and strengthening those groups that can define themselves in such terms. They capture, one might say, the spirit of the age.
Every age has had its darkness and its dangers. The task of the Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to understand its problems and respond appropriately to them.
just as a Roman bridge would cave in under the weight of a modern six-wheeled truck. Culture and the freedoms of people are fragile. Without a sufficient base, when such pressures come only time is needed--and often not a great deal of time--before there is a collapse.How Should We Then Live, 20
The Greeks tried first to build their society upon the city-state, that is, the polis. The city-state, both in theory and fact, was comprised of all those who were accepted as citizens. All values had meaning in reference to the polis.How Should We Then Live, 17
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