Taking Thoughts Captive

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link: Vicious Talk

If we can be certain of anything in these uncertain times, it is that nearly every modicum of civility, maturity, and decency in our American culture has evaporated more quickly than dew in the southeast Texas summer.

Presidents are no longer remotely presidential (this is not novel with the current administration). Successful businessmen talk to and about others in ways that would've gotten our mouths washed out with soap as children. And everyday average people treat others online in ways that ought to make them utterly ashamed of their vitriol and immaturity.

None of this is news, but it should concern us. It should be especially concerning to Christians, who are by no means above the fray or immune to the temptations of unleashing childish diatribes against others online and in person. What ever happened to the civilized part of our civilization?

Anthony Esolen has written a great piece lamenting this reality. As one on the right side of the political, theological, and cultural spectrum, he does not mind taking aim first at his own. He writes:

That most of the spitefulness is aimed by the left against the right is no comfort for the conservative, because quite enough of it goes the other way, and the general effect is the same. It will do you no spiritual good, and it is unlikely to achieve even a worldly purpose, to be pleased to find that your opponent, who may be to blame for falsehood or cowardice or outright wickedness, has justified your low opinion, and to make that pleasure evident to everyone. It is not a love of truth. It is a love of falsehood in others. One sign of it is the disappointment you feel when you learn that someone is innocent of the sin you had attributed to him.

The rest of his piece, which quotes largely from 19th century Italian author Alessandro Manzoni, shows us that our current state is neither unique to our day nor new in its ugliness.

It is definitely worth a thoughtful read.

#links #culture #theology

To hear the voice of the Spirit speaking, you have to know what the Spirit has said. In other words, to know what God is saying now, you have to also know what God has said in the past. Scripture is this living record of God's acts and pronouncements. God has already told us that He is yesterday, today, and forever the same. Unlike us, God does not reinvent Himself over and over again. He is who He is. He is who He was and who He will be. They are not new or different but the same.

Pr. Peters writes about Rome, but the same is true of all who diverge from sola scriptura, whether Roman Catholic, Charismatic/Pentecostal, or liberal/progressive mainline Protestants. This is surely worth a careful read.

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