Benedict Option or Jeremiah Option?

Links to old articles, I started writing in 2014!
  
What do you think?  What impact does this have on the church, and on Christ's kingdom?


www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/benedict-option


ZvonimirAtletic / Shutterstock.com



www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-would-jeremiah-do


Sistine Chapel, prophet Jeremiah / Wikimedia Commons

Rage at death

“It is essential to grasp the theological point that stands at the heart of our lostness, and therefore of our redemption: death is, finally, the result of our sin, and therefore rage directed against God, as if he were unfair for passing the sentence that our sin deserved, is inherently foolish, as foolish as criticizing a judge for passing a just sentence on a bank robber. Our rage is better directed at the ugliness of death, the wretchedness of sin, our sense of betrayal and self-betrayal. It may be a venting of our profound loss and frustration. But thoughtful Christians will never lose sight of the origins of death, and therefore will not, at least on this ground, rage against God himself.”

- D. A. Carson, How Long Oh Lord?  http://ref.ly/o/howlonglord/225520 

As I reflect back on 2019, and the entire decade (which really does not end this year, but that's another issue!), I am reminded of the failures of leaders ... and of us all.  This video clip is a good approach to reconciling how we live in light of God's Gospel.


How John Piper Processes the Moral Failures of His Historical Heroes from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

sex, cosmology, and the future of the West

Stepping back in time, these words from Dreher and The Economist have gained even more significance through time. In what state do we find American culture in this one issue? Father, please forgive our plunge into decadence and self-pleasure.

Rather, in the modern era, we have inverted the role of culture. Instead of teaching us what we must deprive ourselves of to be civilized, we have a society that tells us we find meaning and purpose in releasing ourselves from the old prohibitions.How this came to be is a complicated story involving the rise of humanism, the advent of the Enlightenment, and the coming of modernity. As philosopher Charles Taylor writes in his magisterial religious and cultural history A Secular Age, “The entire ethical stance of moderns supposes and follows on from the death of God (and of course, of the meaningful cosmos).” To be modern is to believe in one’s individual desires as the locus of authority and self-definition. 

How this came to be is a complicated story involving the rise of humanism, the advent of the Enlightenment, and the coming of modernity. As philosopher Charles Taylor writes in his magisterial religious and cultural history A Secular Age, “The entire ethical stance of moderns supposes and follows on from the death of God (and of course, of the meaningful cosmos).” To be modern is to believe in one’s individual desires as the locus of authority and self-definition.
Gradually the West lost the sense that Christianity had much to do with civilizational order, Taylor writes. In the 20th century, casting off restrictive Christian ideals about sexuality became increasingly identified with health. By the 1960s, the conviction that sexual expression was healthy and good—the more of it, the better—and that sexual desire was intrinsic to one’s personal identity culminated in the sexual revolution, the animating spirit of which held that freedom and authenticity were to be found not in sexual withholding (the Christian view) but in sexual expression and assertion. That is how the modern American claims his freedom.

(2013: www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/sex-after-christianity/)

The demand for sex probably does not change much over time, but other things do. A century ago, when sexual mores were stricter, prostitution was more common and better paid (see table). Men’s demand for commercial sex was higher because the non-commercial sort was harder to obtain—there was no premarital hook-up culture. Women were attracted to prostitution in part because their other job opportunities were so meagre. And they commanded high wages partly because the social stigma was so great—without high pay, it was not worth enduring it.

(2014: www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599351-laying-bare-supply-and-demand-oldest-profession-sex-lies-and-statistics)

x

Wise use of the time given us

I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)