Pattern of change

Gradually, then suddenly.  O'Reilly identifies this pattern of change repeatedly experienced in my industry, or more broadly, in the economy as a whole.  Quoting from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, this pattern has been experienced multiple times, and I've lived through it:  the web; the shift from mainframe to PC to server to cloud; the movement of audio from vinyl to cassette to CD to mp3.    Read the article here: www.oreilly.com/ideas/gradually-then-suddenly

While O'Reilly applies this appropriately to the economy, I wonder about the impact on the culture and the church.  We have witness this pattern exemplified over the past 10 years culturally.  What is the long-term impact of this?  Where are we headed?  Nietzsche's The Madman comes into play:

How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?

- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.  www.historyguide.org/europe/madman.html

Our culture has gradually wiped away all reference points, all standards of truth, right, justice.  All that remains is relatively, identity-based reference points which ultimately are power-based reliant upon a social contract.  There is no defined horizon.  The sense of plunging, unknown which ways is up or down, straying into an infinite nothing ... this is where our culture is suddenly experiencing.

What does this mean to the church?  How does the church recognize the time, and respond with the hope, love, grace, meaning, and purpose of the Gospel?   It is for such as moment at this that He has called us.

Family first?

The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home
by Russell Moore (B&H Publishing Group, 2018) 

I came across a review of this book recently. In the midst of the busy-ness of life, I'm working through it.  My initial impression: it is a much-needed (in my life, at least) clarification, and even correction, of my understanding of family.  Recommended!