Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A world turned upside down

I give you a personal testimony here. I believe that the bible offers us a blue print for the way we are to conduct ourselves , that is the way the world is to function in order for there to be the ultimate expression of freedom to ones neighbors, to ones treatment of all the things in his environment. I am saying this because man was given a glorious dispensation to rule over creation. The earth was made for man, but God rules the air and the heavens. The cross is how we experience this freedom to love that was extended to us as an example and to us as the ruling effect in us in acting toward one another in society. This world view is not without certain order in Gods divine election. I mean there is a great mystery that precedes this Utopian order. Every man desires to have perfect authority over creation. This is what God puts in the heart of man as man has a restless heart until His longing for eternal things is satisfied. So that the lack of this divine order frustrates the peaceful rule of Gods design for man.

One of the reasons i moved my family to the country was so that i could find an expression of this order. Its funny to me to be in a society where there are people who are always focused on the doing part and yet at the same time their teaching offers a blue print that falls short of the scriptural mandate to live in a society of this natural order that God has placed for man to be. Most men who are of the free will philosophy are more interested in creating an environment that placates something in between what is required and what is to be the goal. This is like living in a no win situation.

But I have prayed and longed for a society that worked according to the old boundaries of marriage and community. That is women staying at home and teaching the kids so that there was a philosophy of life in which the community had shared values. I think that women given to the natural role are the creators of this kind of connection. My kids were raised the old fashion way. So i am arguing that the blue print that God has set up in a very practical way has the best outcome when we have people of different orthodoxies living at peace with one another. Its impossible for men to generate this kind of peace. We were not made to be women. What i am saying is, that there is an undercurrent in our most orthodox churches of people who live in a society that has lost this other world so that we live in a dream world that is turned upside down so that the frustration level is equal to the depth of teaching and it is the nexus of a coldness that permeates the worship of Gods people. I do not think we can take these things litely.

We were warned in the late 60s and early 70s that our education of our children would have a dramatic effect on the level of worship and the kind of attendance to orthodox churches. Now we are 30 plus yrs later and we are seeing the effects of this strife that we face as a result of these things having to be a personal anxiety toward one another and the world. We are seeing love wax cold.

I raised my children in a community that was naturally given to peace. There was not much disunity among those who had different views of faith. I think we have this backwards today. We are more interested in orthodoxy than we are to reteach the divine order of creation. We love our orthodoxy in a very dysfunctional society. And that the dysfunction is not generally from how we were raised but by the kind of society we create in our families. I think we are dealing with living among scorpions and snakes in this kind of society.

No comments: