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On the one hand we have secular Leftism for which issues are always clear and simple (clear and simple, that is, but not stable - today's clear and simple may be the opposite of tomorrow's.).
Christians tend to respond and resist by saying variations upon the theme of 'but it's more complex than that, there are further implications you have not thought about, further debate is required...'.
So we have clear and simple versus confused and complex... Guess who always wins?
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In fact the 'hot button', litmus test moral issues of our era are perfectly clear and absolutely simple for Christians (I mean clear and simple for real Christians - not for the mass of Leftist-pseudo-Christians).
But the clarity and simplicity of the questions depends upon authority - tradition, the consensus of Holier (and more truthful, and more moral) persons from the past whose understanding was qualitatively greater than ours and whose insights we are not entitled to revise and whose guidance we must therefore accept.
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But one facet of the impregnable pride of modernity is that it believes it has transcended authority and now depends only on reason and evidence.
In reality, society as it is now has dispensed with reason and evidence except at the level of sound-bites and fashion; and relies on emotional manipulation and coercion - however the disdain for authority is by now thoroughly entrenched.
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And within Christianity.
Church structures are fundamentally overthrown simply because those with power (having thought about the matter for at least five minutes, and because change benefits them) cannot see any reason why they should not be overthrown.
Liturgy has become a maelstrom of experimentation in which beauty, dignity and profundity are the casualties to simplification or distortion - immediate appeal, immediate comprehensibility, obvious compatibility with secular values.
And scripture has gone the same way. Words are no longer dependent upon divine inspiration but can be re- and re- and re-'translated' in line with the latest scholarly or political fashions, to make them fun, and to make them (pseudo) understandable - leaving a leaden mixture of the trite, the bureaucratic and just plain made-up stuff.
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But the big moral issues of our time are, for real Christians, no-brainers.
On the one hand there are the forces of today's secular hedonic Leftism; and on the other hand the two thousand consensus of the best Christians.
What is there to discuss, debate, think-further-about-the-implications-of...?
Nothing.
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3 comments:
not for the mass of Leftist-pseudo-Christians
CINOs in other words.
But - but - but! I kid.
What interests me is the incredible energy of the revolutionaries-in-the-Church; it is much like the story in politics. They continue pressing and pressing, always feeling out a weak place to break down, and on other fronts only waiting until they are stronger.
My great hope is the strong tendency of my generation, the youth, to disclaim connection with Christianity at all. Their ranks are not being replenished, and their organs are bemoaning this. But Goliath is still Goliath, and we are still David.
The beauty of Secular Leftism is that its adherents have privileged access to the "root cause" of any phenomenon that takes their interest.
You might almost think they got tip-offs from God. Except that ....
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