Monday, September 25, 2017
Sunday, September 24, 2017
The Cultural Impact Of Worldview & Apologetics, Part 4
One of the most profound differences between Christianity and Eastern religious is how each believes truth is arrived at. Christianity believes that God has revealed Himself through the word of His propositional revelation and the Incarnation of His Word in the from of His Son Jesus Christ. Of the Eastern religions, on the other hand, Harold Netland writes, "In attaining religious truth, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism give priority to mystical or introspective experiences based on rigorous meditative disciplines which are said to provide direct unmediated access to ultimate reality (163)."
In other words, Christians focus outward to gain understanding whereas the adherents of the great Oriental traditions look inside themselves. This is especially evidenced by the two foremost figures these respective faith groupings are roughly organized around: the Christ and the Buddha.
The purpose of Buddha was to get the individual to realize that the individual has within themselves the wherewithal to bring about their own enlightenment and to detach themselves from the states of being that bring about their own suffering. The purpose of Christ, on the other hand, was to get the individual to realize that they were so stained by sin that there was nothing that the individual could do to achieve his own salvation and that individuals had to look outward from themselves towards a savior, that being none other than Jesus Christ.
Since Christianity is focused outward in its offering of a solution to the travails in which each and every one of us finds ourselves, as a system it corresponds better to both the objective and existential aspects of reality. In his journey to Japan, theologian Paul Tillich learned that, should an historian ever persuasively make the case based on research findings that Gautama Siddhartha never actually existed, such a discovery for the most part would not adversely impact Buddhist teaching (165). However such would not be the case regarding Christianity, which is so linked to the existence, actions, and nature of its founder that if He did not do what the accounts of Him claim, we of all men would be the most miserable according to I Corinthians 15:19.
Despite standing in contrast to many of Christianity’s most basic assumptions, the objective student and observer of religion (even if standing within a Christian framework of belief) must admit that the most devoted adherents of the respective Eastern creeds practice a rigorous form of self-discipline as they attempt to master the urges that exert an undue influence over the individual throughout the earthly life. Though many are opposed to the idea of relying solely on a savior for their salvation and find an allure in the Eastern notion of looking for the answers to the mysteries of life and the cosmos within themselves, they do not necessarily find the idea of rigorous self denial all that appealing (at least for themselves anyway with pleas of sacrifice for the greater good something to rather motivate and govern the lower classes of the less-spiritually inclined by).
Thus in a process not all that dissimilar to the operation of the Hegelian dialectic where two competing or even diametric ideas are brought together and melded together to form a synthesis incorporating aspects of each, Eastern and Western outlooks have formed a coalition perspective in what since the 1960's and 1970's has come to be known as the New Age movement.
Like the Eastern worldview, the New Age outlook essentially sees the totality of reality as a singular unity with the individual in a sense being akin to a single cell in the comprehensive cosmic mind (175). As in the case of the Eastern faiths, L.Russ Bush writes, "...the New Age movement emphasizes the human problem as ignorance with salvation coming through enlightenment and self-effort (176)."
However, in the New Age movement, the approach and outcomes of this awareness are a bit more decidedly Western in their appearance. For example, in Eastern brands of yoga the purpose is more about detaching the soul from the body in preparation for spiritual states such as nirvana. To Westerners, however, yoga is packaged not only as about the quest for inward universal truths but also about improving one's body and success in life.
Thus, for at least those in the movement's elite, there is a considerable emphasis upon the self. L. Russ Bush categorizes the emphasis upon the here and now rather than a future heaven as "This worldliness”. Of this state, he writes, “...the New Age is focused on the here and now; it is not a pie-in-the-sky sort of faith; it is belief that the New Age is itself the here and now and for this world and its people; it looks forward to an earthly transformation, not a heavenly one (180).” What is not as often brought out to the gullible along this worldview’s outer fringes is the number that those in the higher echelons believe must be eliminated or perhaps “deliberately progressed” to more advanced levels of disembodied consciousness in order for this utopia to be brought about.
The New Age has become so ingrained throughout American society that it no longer seems as novel as at the time when its name was coined. Now, certain interpretations of this brand of spirituality quietly just about serve as the respectable backdrop of establishmentarian popular culture. For example, Star Wars is no doubt one of the most beloved movie epics of the last 50 years. However, to a percentage of its viewers, it is far more than an invigorating afternoon’s diversion. It has been reported that a number of “Jedi churches” have popped up among fans that have taken enthusiasm for the films to the next level of adoration and devotion.
Those grounded in the real world will think those taking entertainment this seriously have sniffed too many musty comic books. However, beneath the dramatic adventure and impressive special effects, Star Wars was not created solely for entertainment purposes. George Lucas, who considered himself something of a student of anthropologist Joseph Campbell, created Star Wars to serve as a mythology for the contemporary world.
This claim can be substantiated in regards to those scenes from the films where the nature of the Force is expounded upon. For example, of the Force, Yoda (the primary exponent of these teachings) ruminates, “For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us.”
And like New Age conceptions of the essence that runs through the universe, the Force is not a conscious person concerned about the distinctions between good and evil as evidenced by the Dark Side’s primary devotee Darth Vader who it turns out is actually the saga’s focal character as the tale centers around his embracing of the Dark Side and reentering into the Light when he saves his son Luke from Vader’s Sith Master Emperor Palpatine. This act was cast not in terms of the triumph of good over evil but rather as merely restoring balance in an almost Taoist manner.
The extent to which these various worldviews have permeated contemporary culture as to the extent Star Wars has has forced the Christian to walk a precarious tightrope. On the one hand, there isn’t a person in the United States today that hasn’t had some kind of negative encounter with those that could be classified as stereotypical legalistic Christians.
Enthusiastic believers are to be commended for the seriousness with which they take their Christian walk if it is ultimately in Christ’s redemptive and free offer of salvation that they are truly trusting rather than in a rigorous adherence to a body of systematized rules, some of which are interpretations of certain Biblical injunctions rather than explicit Scriptural commands. However, in doing so, are such believers really equipping themselves to reach out to others that have become mired in these deceptive worldviews? Furthermore, by cordoning themselves off to such an extent in relation to things such as Star Wars, Stargate, and Star Trek, these Christians are denying themselves what amounts to an innocent good time and are not doing as much as they initially think to protect their children by failing to teach them how to sift the wheat from the chaff in relation to cinematic and literary productions.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, September 22, 2017
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Monday, September 18, 2017
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Monday, September 11, 2017
Friday, September 08, 2017
Thursday, September 07, 2017
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Tuesday, September 05, 2017
Friday, September 01, 2017
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
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Friday, August 25, 2017
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Monday, August 21, 2017
Friday, August 18, 2017
Headline Potpourri #99
And are Trump's tweets appreciably more corrosive to the vitality of the Republic than Bill Clinton attempting to pin the blame for the Oklahoma City Bombing on Rush Limbaugh or insisting that the only reason Rush stood up for Janet Reno in one particular instance was because “she was attacked by a Black guy”? And more recently, are Trump's remarks really any more outrageous than those of Barack Obama blaming America's problems on those bitter clingers unwilling to surrender their guns or their God?
As part of his condemnation of Alex Jones, Kevin Swanson quoted from a work on conspiracies by Gary North. If we are to disbelieve in the existence of shadowy powers and forces manipulating events, people, and institutions largely from behind the scenes, do both Swanson and North repudiate North's opus “Unholy Spirits: Occultism & New Age Humanism”? For in that work is a chapter examining from a Christian perspective the very UFO's that Swanson's podcast derided the believers of.
Fuss has been made over the drama that unfolded regarding a resolution submitted by a Black pastor at the Southern Baptist Convention calling for the condemnation of the so-called Alt Right. Do the proceedings of predominately minority denominations come to a screeching halt with accompanying media coverage if the token White in these typically leftwing ecclesiastical affiliations offers a proposal that has been submitted primarily to thumb one's nose at the prevailing demographic of the organization's membership?
In his condemnation of Alex Jones, homeschool activist Kevin Swanson hypothesized that the appeal of conspiracy theories is a form of gnosticism. By that, he did not mean the traditional heresy amalgamating Christian terminology with various Greco-Roman mystical philosophies in order to create a spirituality that denies orthodox doctrines such as those regarding the incarnation. Rather, Swanson meant that those drawn to these speculations enjoy the thrill of secret knowledge most fully understood by those within the particular group. And how is that much different than predestinarian Calvinism that holds Christ is only accessible by those already selected to rank among the soteriological elite?
Regarding the increasing number of Christian leaders advocating that youth not go to college. Are they going to provide decent paying jobs for those that heed this admonition? More importantly, are they going to provide jobs for those that heed this advice but disagree with them on some asinine secondary issue that some of these hardline sectarians are infamous for espousing? After all, you are less likely to openly disagree with the benighted leader if doing so strands you up excrement's tributary without a paddle.
In an analysis of the Southern Baptist resolution against White supremacy, the pastoral staff of Berean Baptist Church on their SermonAudio podcast equated racialist sentiment with commemorations beloved by traditionalist American Christians such as Mother's Day and the Fourth of July. These clerics insisted that neither has a place in a Sunday morning worship service. So does this church pass over Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month as well? More importantly, does this church ever intend to remove from its SermonAudio profile page the photo of the congregation's building surrounded by multiple American flags?
For an unproduced Wonder Woman screenplay that might have emphasized the “woman” over the “wonder”, it has been stated that even an alley of women (meaning he lavishes boatloads of money on infanticide fronts such as Planned Parenthood) such as Josh Whedon must be held accountable. It was an UNPRODUCED screenplay! That means his take on the story was already deemed not good enough to proceed into further development Isn't that accountability enough? It's not like he committed a war crime deserving of a human rights tribunal at the Hague.
In the discussion of his book “The Vanishing American Adult” at the Hoover Institution, Senator Ben Sasse provided the anecdote regarding students of the college he served as president of not climbing twenty feet up a ladder in order to decorate a campus tree for Christmas. Given that Senator Sasse's academic specialty is America's Jude-Christian foundations, perhaps he would care to elaborate where in holy writ maturity is defined by a willingness to risk one's life and well being for the sake of decorating yuletide shrubbery. Should someone fall from such a height and profoundly disable oneself, is Senator Sasse and his merry band of radical freemarketeers going to deny the injured coverage for ongoing care?
Leftwing religionists are shocked at the reluctance of the few discerning Southern Baptists that remain to get onboard the resolution to condemn the alleged White supremacy of the Alt Right. That reluctance is probably because those that study these sorts of things realize that often this kind of rhetoric is commonly invoked to frighten into silence and compliance those refusing to applaud radical minority supremacism and professional agitation. Maybe certain Whites were not so keen on the Alt Right resolution because they are weary of Convention propagandists constantly praising minorities but going out of their way to foment Yankee varieties of White guilt.
If Neil de Grasse Tyson is supposedly qualified to hand down opinion on nuanced environmental regulation and policy when his expertise is in Astronomy, why aren't Donald Trump's pronouncements regarding science when the President's expertise is in businesses negotiation?
It was said in a sermon that, after you die, whatever sins you have not confessed, you will be held accountable for. And how exactly will these sins be held against us if we are not blocked entrance to Heaven on the basis of what we have done but rather allowed entrance on the basis of what Christ did? If it was announced earlier in the year that Baptists should be all gungho for Lent, this almost sounds like the acceptance of Purgatory is not far behind.
Outrage has erupted over Donald Trump Jr clandestinely meeting with a Russian lobbyist with ties to that state's military intelligence agency. Shouldn't the outrage be even more with the administration under whom such a person was allowed to take up residence in the United States? If you are so stupid as not to realize such an individual is going to continue their life's work of subterfuge and subversion, you really ought not to be working in government especially in regards to national security. In a podcast discussion about finding a church, a pastor remarked that he was leery of the average Christian that comes into a church with an agenda to fix the things that are wrong with a congregation from their particular viewpoint. But shouldn't the same sense of vigilance be applied to new pastors storming in when things prior to their arrival weren't necessarily out of whack to begin with?
In condemning the Wonder Woman movie because of the character's pagan origins, does homeschool activist Kevin Swanson also intend to condemn the study of mythology and authors such as C.S. Lewis and Tolkien that employed such motifs in their fantasy narratives?
To some, it's apparently a greater outrage that President Trump doesn't own a dog than that President Obama used to eat them.
For converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, broadcaster Kevin Boling insinuated that Hank Hanegraaff was a heretic. The episode discussing such was bluntly titled at SermonAudio, “Hanegraaff's Theosis Heresy”. So if a rigorous separation is to be maintained between Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy to the point that there can be very little in terms of good relations between the adherents of these differing interpretations of Christianity, shouldn't Boling have been more critical in his interview of Rod Dreher when interviewing that author about the “Benedict Option”? After all, Dreher is an adherent of Eastern Orthodoxy just like Hanegraaff.
If Jenner did not want his “transition” turned into late night comedy fodder as the former Olympian lamented to host Jimmy Kimmel, he should have confined his escapades to prancing around in frilly lingerie at home with the curtains closed.
An episode of Generations Radio celebrated the demise of liberal arts colleges in the role of educating young minds. Apparently it's not enough simply to teach these disciplines from a Christian perspective. Rather the entire system of classroom instruction is flawed. All well and good. However, if this is the route that conservatives and Evangelicals want to go, there must also be protections put in place so that access to knowledge is not restricted to the few preferred by the cliques that run most churches and religious institutions.
Regarding these ministries, theologians, and pundits opposed to college education. They are awfully specific in getting their point across that the truly pious and devout ought not to go. However, these same “authorities” startlingly nebulous in detailing what alternative path one is expected to pursue in order to secure a reasonable living.
Michelle Obama has once again chastised the American people. Now she claims we never saw past her skin color. Probably because either a functionary directly a member of the Obama regime or a propaganda lackey in the mainstream media had to inform the American people about this fact nearly every hour on the hour.
By Frederick Meekins