I've related this story a couple of times in these posts but this
time it is with a specific purpose in mind. The new millennium had just
begun. I was fifty years old and had returned to college to work on a
MA in Higher Education at a Christian college. The twenty or so students
formed a cohort and we went from one class to another through the
curriculum over an eighteen month period. I finished all of the classes
but did not go any further to get the degree. All that was left was a
seminar of short classes and a research paper but I had achieved what I
went for, that being some insight into higher education in America.
The classes were informal and really quite impressive in the goal of educating. It was one particular class day, actually an evening, where the conversation revolved around current events and current trends in society. I was not shy in these classes and that evening I was determined as the conversation went on to give my opinion. I remember that my tone was very serious and I think that this was noticed. I wanted to give these mostly younger people the benefit of my experience. Our society, I told them, was heading to a division but more than just a division. We were being torn apart but I didn't mention that. I wanted them to know that a very serious change was taking place in America.....and it was not good. Were I to give that talk today it would be much more in-depth and specific but at the time I wanted to emphasize the seriousness of the situation more than the who, what, when, where and why.
I was correct in my assessment of where we were going. I wish that I weren't. We are two peoples today in America that bear little resemblance to each other in not only our religious and political beliefs but in our thinking patterns. In my opinion one side functions reasonably well and the other does not, so much so that the word 'suicide' is often used to describe where we are heading as a society and as a nation. Today's post, regrettably, is similar to those thoughts from the year 2000 only the division has intensified to new levels.
Why is it I wonder that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, both deniers of the verity of the Christian faith, wrote two books that turned out to be eerily prophetic? Those being 1984 and Brave New World of course. They could see where we were going but did not realize that their personal beliefs were what was taking us there. Just one example of our societal deterioration would be the college campus of today. Something very unnerving is happening on some of the more elite campuses. Freedom of speech has become the enemy....and bullying has become the method of confronting it. To make matters worse the administrators of these schools are not even attempting to stop it.
So that is my message in this post... similar to what I told my fellow cohort members fifteen years ago. Conversation, dialogue and reason alone will not solve this for common sense has abandoned us on the one side which has few skills for reasoning and less for discerning truth, and where to them the loudest and most persistent voice claims.....no demands.....the debate trophy. An article posted on the Drudge Report as I write, written by novelist and theorist Bret Easton Ellis, describes a burgeoning societal trend where "Anyone who resists such groupthink is ruthlessly shamed."
We have a nation of about 320 million people from all walks of life and from the urban to the rural and in between. Should God, in His infinite wisdom, will it to move upon our hearts and minds these rebellions will not succeed nor grow. Should He decide otherwise we will fall directly into the abyss. We cannot pray with the necessary ardor if we do not realize the extent of peril that we are in. That ardor in prayer will eventually come but it would be in a time of a complete breakdown of law and order where hate would be so commonplace that it would not even be recognized as such. So if my words resonate with you....pray now and with ardor, and with consistency...as if grabbing the hem of our Lord's tunic and refusing to let go without His healing our hearts and minds. And consider the words of Jesus from Matthew 24 where in direct response to a question about about the sign of His coming responded with....."Take heed that no one deceives you (for) you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.....and then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.....lawlessness will abound (and) the love of many will grow cold."
The classes were informal and really quite impressive in the goal of educating. It was one particular class day, actually an evening, where the conversation revolved around current events and current trends in society. I was not shy in these classes and that evening I was determined as the conversation went on to give my opinion. I remember that my tone was very serious and I think that this was noticed. I wanted to give these mostly younger people the benefit of my experience. Our society, I told them, was heading to a division but more than just a division. We were being torn apart but I didn't mention that. I wanted them to know that a very serious change was taking place in America.....and it was not good. Were I to give that talk today it would be much more in-depth and specific but at the time I wanted to emphasize the seriousness of the situation more than the who, what, when, where and why.
I was correct in my assessment of where we were going. I wish that I weren't. We are two peoples today in America that bear little resemblance to each other in not only our religious and political beliefs but in our thinking patterns. In my opinion one side functions reasonably well and the other does not, so much so that the word 'suicide' is often used to describe where we are heading as a society and as a nation. Today's post, regrettably, is similar to those thoughts from the year 2000 only the division has intensified to new levels.
Why is it I wonder that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, both deniers of the verity of the Christian faith, wrote two books that turned out to be eerily prophetic? Those being 1984 and Brave New World of course. They could see where we were going but did not realize that their personal beliefs were what was taking us there. Just one example of our societal deterioration would be the college campus of today. Something very unnerving is happening on some of the more elite campuses. Freedom of speech has become the enemy....and bullying has become the method of confronting it. To make matters worse the administrators of these schools are not even attempting to stop it.
So that is my message in this post... similar to what I told my fellow cohort members fifteen years ago. Conversation, dialogue and reason alone will not solve this for common sense has abandoned us on the one side which has few skills for reasoning and less for discerning truth, and where to them the loudest and most persistent voice claims.....no demands.....the debate trophy. An article posted on the Drudge Report as I write, written by novelist and theorist Bret Easton Ellis, describes a burgeoning societal trend where "Anyone who resists such groupthink is ruthlessly shamed."
We have a nation of about 320 million people from all walks of life and from the urban to the rural and in between. Should God, in His infinite wisdom, will it to move upon our hearts and minds these rebellions will not succeed nor grow. Should He decide otherwise we will fall directly into the abyss. We cannot pray with the necessary ardor if we do not realize the extent of peril that we are in. That ardor in prayer will eventually come but it would be in a time of a complete breakdown of law and order where hate would be so commonplace that it would not even be recognized as such. So if my words resonate with you....pray now and with ardor, and with consistency...as if grabbing the hem of our Lord's tunic and refusing to let go without His healing our hearts and minds. And consider the words of Jesus from Matthew 24 where in direct response to a question about about the sign of His coming responded with....."Take heed that no one deceives you (for) you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.....and then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.....lawlessness will abound (and) the love of many will grow cold."
