Sometimes I have “Thoughts in Progress” (one of my categories) where I’m working through things. This is one such piece…
We have drifted far from the world of the Bible, and in some cases, this would be wholly justifiable. I mean, have you read the Old Testament? There are most definitely events and edicts contained within its pages that would turn the stomach of the modern-day reader. So, as we see the world progressing to its current state – a state in which more people enjoy more freedom – one would think that we’re finally moving out of the dark ages of the Bible and into a place where we can all be more comfortable.
And perhaps on the surface, this looks to be true.
But we must remember that the actions of men and the words recorded in the Old Testament are not too often prescriptive. This is why one of the more repeated words of the books of history are, “The people [or more specifically, the king] did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Some variation of this shows up dozens of times. So how could we call this a guide for the way to live?
In truth, to point to any part of the Old Testament after Genesis chapter 2 in order to say that the God of the Bible is mean and vindictive fails to account for the root of the problem – and it isn’t God. The end of Genesis 2 has us knit together as one, naked and unashamed in a garden more beautiful than we can ever imagine (I like to think it is a garden where the bugs do what they’re supposed to do). It is only when our first parents did what every one of us would do by nature afterwards – that is, rebel against God and try to run the world their own way – that the whole thing fell apart.
And here we are, millennia later, thinking that the way to correct this all is more of the same…only this time we’ve got it figured out. We’ll just make the standard even more the one we keep in our own hearts, and, when things seem to be going well (however we can define “well”), we can call it “good.”
But it really is more of the same. It doesn’t get us any closer to naked in the garden. It only gets us right back where we’ve always been – relying upon the whimsical tastes of our own preferences, and of course, then, the wildly varying and quite often conflicting views of just how mankind should be running the show. And this brings us right back to the problem. We humans are all the same at heart: we hate (in varying degrees) because others are wrong (by our view, of course). In this world there are winners and there are losers, and the winners are bent on putting the losers in their places. It’s really no different than that against which the progressive claims to be progressing.
It’s somewhat concerning then, that one of the points of attack that is gaining traction is to try to eliminate God from anything at all. In the mind of the humanist, there is no room for this “God” idea, despite the obvious fact that man is, by nature, a spiritual being. Ironically, we see secularism itself becoming the new religion, with its own priesthood, way of salvation, and heretics. We can’t escape it. We can only dig the hole deeper, foolishly thinking “only a bit further till we see daylight,” and that daylight will finally come when we get rid of those who think this “God” way.
We may be spiritual beings, but we are also, by nature, oppressive. We desire to crush those who oppose us. There is no room for this kind of thinking in the brave new world. Those who love true freedom, however, should keep close watch on this. The worst tyranny is not that which is against our actions, but rather that which is against our very thoughts and beliefs – our hearts. And there’s where we might really see the rise of this new persecution – not in the closing of churches and jailing of Christians (as they do in China), but in the covert subversion of thought that doesn’t fit the new norm…