The saddest part of the West’s identity crisis is that the triumphant secular establishment does not have the courage of its own proclaimed convictions. It has gone beyond the pendulum-swing analogy of a strong reaction against the stifling shackles of the old religion and its clinging tentacles.
Category Archives: Apologetics
Myth, Conspiracies, Shame, and the Quest for Truth: 2
For more than a thousand years, the divide in the West’s soul created the dream of “Christendom” on the one hand while still lured and divided by the old habits of heart and mind of power, greed, and lust. The cynics, or perhaps realists, have always had plenty of ammunition to question the dream of the coming of the Kingdom of Christ in the warp and woof of human history – Christendom!
Certainty, Doubt, and Faith
The “War” between science and religion is a misconception. Theists and atheists both believe we can discover much about reality by the scientific method. Both believe that our innate creativity and remarkable intellect can use the creation to bring into being things that would not exist without human invention.
Inconvenient Conscience, 6 – Turning Around, 2 – Paradigm Shift
Western humans entertain a sort of self-hypnosis that we can and will master nature, compel it to do our bidding, because, tiny on the cosmic scale as we are, we are smart, really smart! We can learn everything we need to because we are so smart. We apparently are in the process of uncovering the very secrets of the Universe Itself – its when, what, and how at least. Our current paradigm mostly sloughs off the why and who and makes the where irrelevant.
When Evil Comes, 13 – Rebirth, 4 – The New Human
Agapeo – to love as God loves “A new commandment I give to you [a plural “you” in Greek], that you [plural] love [agapate] one another even as I have loved you, that you also love [agapate] one another. (John 13:34) We have had many millennia to illustrate what the “old” human does. Human creativityContinue reading “When Evil Comes, 13 – Rebirth, 4 – The New Human”
When Evil Comes, 12 – Rebirth, 3
The Kingdom of God is all about agape and entering it can only be by that road. Otherwise, we are once more trying to prove we can do it ourselves, trying to prove we don’t really need the supernatural power of the Creator to really love the agape way, the way the Creator loves each of us and everyone, and indeed the whole Creation that Adonai made in the beginning.
When Evil Comes, 11 – Rebirth, 2
Yeshua speaking to Nakdimon about “spiritual rebirth from above” was talking about true radical change, because more of the same – using the power of the state, of religion, of fear and manipulation and control to compel outer conformity, whether by actual law or social pressure, cannot produce true readiness and willingness, let alone ability, to enter the Kingdom of the Creator.
When Evil Comes, 10 – Rebirth, 1
Nakdimon was one of the elite. He, however, did not disdain or outright reject Yeshua. His opening remark, “Rabbi, we know it is from God that you have come as a teacher; for no one can do these miracles you perform unless God is with him,” shows that he had been pondering the contradiction in the elitist line of saying Yeshua was a sorcerer or a demonically controlled charlatan. By this point, the popular Galilean rabbi had a reputation and a following and his teaching was known and reported regularly to the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. It centered on the coming of the Kingdom of God.
When Evil Comes, 9 – Exit Strategies
What if we just accept that we cannot overcome this “heart of darkness” we find thrusting itself forward? But the more we let it have its way, the easier evil becomes, and the less it bothers us as we go along giving in to it. If that’s just the way we are, why not use it?
When Evil Comes, 7 – The Moral Compass
The nitty-gritty of our struggle with the evil within is not resolved by abstract reasoning. It is faced every day in our decisions about how to treat family members, friends and acquaintances, business and work colleagues, schoolmates, strangers, and our planet. Most of these decisions are made casually, on automatic pilot so to speak. They are made in accordance with an (however unconsciously) internalized set of principles and criteria we have imbibed from our family of birth, our more extended community as we grow and mature, and the cultural influences we encounter and move in and through along our road to maturity.
World.V.You 