Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-8-24

Some cultural critics and many traditional Christians lament the state of things today. “Things”? Maybe almost everything… everywhere we look… even the future is despaired of. Believers “know the end of the story,” the glorious promises of God, yet among those promises are trials and tribulations, we know. “What kind of world are we leaving for our children?” is often asked.

This angst and pessimism – or realism? – is not exclusive to the traditionalists and religious people, however. This is an age of discontent: radicals, revolutionaries, the “Woke” armies likewise are weary, or rebellious, against the current System and what brought societies to this point.

It is the Age of Discontent, which term is the title of a book of observations by Sigmund Freud. More pertinent is the earlier essay by Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay.

Of all the isms that plague us these days, and no matter your place on the philosophical and political spectrums, the strongest is Incrementalism. Surely it is the most insidious. Most of the things that upset most of us were not advocated by us, not designed, not forecast. Yet often we act surprised that certain identifiable decisions were wrong, horribly wrong.

Our temples gradually have crumbled; our swamps quietly have risen and spread. Surely, we – all of us – have been blind and careless, we have grown sloppy about commitments, and dismissive of standards. Like fallen civilizations of the past, we have a subliminal sense of security that we somehow are immune from decline and self-destruction.

In this we are, of course, fools.

If analysis might be useful and lead to course-correction, we should reject the idea that we (let us focus on “Christendom,” so-called Western Civilization) have “lost faith.” It is a point of view automatic among the religious; and it is mistaken. Oh, church attendance is down, and we are confronted by statistics that are alarms to those of who work to resist the drift. But a recent book The Secular Age cited polls claiming that more than half the population does not belong to an organized religion, only a third believe in life after death, 16 per cent in reincarnation, and only half believe in a higher power. (And of course “higher power” these days can mean gods invented on the spot. Or as my daughter says about the current pathology of those who switch genders every week, “choosing to be, or believe in, a hairbrush.”) And so forth, as we all know.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Our problems do not stem from our peoples’ lack of faith, but the situation that people hold to faith in many, many, many things. Indiscriminately. Irresponsibly. Incrementally.

Of course my critique is that Christendom has abandoned Christianity. The “Faith of our fathers” has largely become as attractive to broad swaths of contemporary society as the ties and dresses, dance steps and home décor of previous generations. Christian dogma is seldom asserted in many of our churches. Worship conforms to the latest (and changeable) tastes and demands of audiences. The Biblical “givens” that underlay government, schools, courts, even the entertainment media… are no longer a priori assumptions.

Indeed, Biblical standards routinely are rejected, mocked, and suppressed. So what should we expect? People who believe in everything… effectively believe in nothing. When a society has no standards, we must expect that even “right” and “wrong” are obsolete concepts.

We have a natural tendency to feel overwhelmed by the forces of evil. We are tempted, despite our faith in Jesus and the promises of God, to fear that all is hopeless, at least outside our own spheres. I am reminded that when the Communist Whittaker Chambers found Christ and became a patriot, he wrote that he believed in God, but that – as a citizen in a decaying American society – he was joining the “losing side.” His soul would live in Heaven but his country was doomed. Do you have those feelings?

What I cling to, among many truths and revelations, are the verses about God adorning the lilies of the field, and caring even for small sparrows. Yes, we must know the Truth. Yes, we must fight for our faith and families and future. Yes, the enemies of Christ are many, and are wily and vicious.

It is worthwhile, and daunting I know, to resist. But how often do we stop and remember that it is His fight? God will equip us; the Holy Spirit was sent to strengthen our… faith. Faith. We cannot cast about to find new faith in new remedies. God’s answers are in front of us. If your simple faith in God and His promises sometime go weak, remember that the Gift of Faith is one of the Spiritual Gifts that He has promised, and we can access at any time.

Asking God for more faith, purer faith, mighty faith in Him, is not a sign of weakness. His provision of the Holy Spirit must not be treated as a futile act unless you respond feebly.

Our world might be drifting, and in directions we hate. As we do battle – for we must! – how typical of God that He can encourage us with the simplest, gentlest assurance that His eye is on the sparrow, and we know He watches us too. Let us be happy warriors. The battle is the Lord’s!

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Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

9-19-22

A recent dust-up on the Internet – or in “real” life, about the Internet – a pair of zillionaires addressed the evils that lurk in this new world of skewed values, formed and furthered by the Internet. They focused on the relatively sudden change in society’s standards, and the various dangers represented by “bots,” attractive lies, and the web’s seductive appeals to youth.

Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berskshire Hathaway, seemingly took a swipe at the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who agreed with Munger’s premise but is fighting his own battles against bots and bias of sites like his targeted Twitter.

I am grateful for the subjects to be raised; the men are close to the truth – a disturbing truth that has malignant implications for Western Civilization. Munger said at a conference: “The world is not driven by greed, it is driven by envy.” Elon Musk, in a separate screen statement, responded about a specific site, “Instagram is an envy amplifier,” referring to its toxic temptations. He is getting warm.

Those temptations? They are common to movies, TV, Facebook, YouTube also – not only for people to feel pressure to look better, but if necessary to act differently. Changing one’s (web) personality is a step away from changing one’s real personality and standards, to some abstract web-defined perfection. Then, another baby-step to adopting alien values and standards to be acceptable to invisible judges on magazine covers, music videos, movies, and the web. Musk even admitted to being addicted to Selfies and the urge to Photoshop them.

Enough people are doing the same thing these days, so the willing victims feel safe and… welcome.

I keep myself from calling these human chameleons “kids,” because adults are dancing to the same tunes. With “itching ears,” as the Bible calls the willing dupes, they say to the culture, in effect, “lie to me.”

Yes, adults, too. I am astonished by how many teenage girls I see in malls trying to look like 40-year-old skanks; and how many mothers try to look like teenagers.

Munger and Musk are close to Biblical truth, whether they know it or not. Greed and envy are subsets of Pride. The Church has long warned against the Seven Deadly Sins. That list is not in Scripture itself, but is inherent in Commandments, proverbs, and church teachings. They are, generally:

Gluttony

Lust, Fornication

Greed

Despair

Anger

Sloth, Laziness

Pride

Few would argue that, deep down, prudent respect these anti-virtues for the poison they represent. Yet humanity continues on its way. For all of God’s warnings and laws – going back to the Garden, really – in my mind the chief of all these Deadly Sins is Pride.

I see all sins, all offenses against God, as flowing from Pride. Adam and Eve thought that they could evade God. Satan thought he could outmaneuver God. Rebellious souls think they are cleverer than God. Individual sinners think that God will give them a pass. Gnostics think they know more than God. Legalists think that good deeds will impress God, despite what He said. Secularists, when they grant the possibility of a God, think they will get brownie-points for “caring” and being nice people.

All of them think they know more than God, or have an “in” with Him, or can explain away their sins, which are, after all, not worse than those of their faulty neighbors…

It is all Pride.

C S Lewis said that Pride “leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…. Pride is understood to sever the spirit from God, as well as His life-and-grace-giving Presence.”

Benjamin Franklin said that none of our passions more than Pride, is “so hard to subdue…. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive and will every now and then peep out and show itself.” In his famous fashion, mixing humor and wisdom, he said, “Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

And, famously, the Bible said that Pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18). It sounds like a gentle warning, but it is a grim promise of what happens to people under God’s eyes, and reject His grace.

“Lovers of selves,” instead of God. Pride. Have you heard these words? Also not a warning, but a prophecy. You tell me: Are we in those End Times?

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. – II Timothy 3:1-5

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Click Video Clip: Who Am I?