Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-27-17

If you have been visiting with this Junior Jeremiah of late, you know that I am persuaded that our problems in America, in the West, in the church, are well nigh intractable. I am afraid that we have slipped down the slippery slope, and probably are close to swirling down the tubes.

God is sovereign, of course; and many of us pray for revival. Fervently. But logic, not to mention Biblical history, argues against spontaneous moral regeneration. Does God impose rectitude on a people who are not so inclined? Is it likely that our culture, en masse, will awake some Monday morning, saying, “OK, enough of several generals of decline! Let’s all return to being moral, polite, just, considerate, chaste, responsible, and religious”?

The Law of Civilization and Decay (posited in the brilliant but largely forgotten book of that title by Brooks Adams, 1895) is unfolding in history’s latest crumbling culture, our post-Christian West. The statistics about our condition are dispositive… and daunting.

Yet as a Christian, if not otherwise an optimist, I do not prescribe resignation. As Christ’s representatives in the world, we will go down, if we do go down, fighting. Christians have already won in the sense that we are joint heirs with Christ to the Eternal Home that is ours. But to fulfill His Great Commission, for the sake of our children, and for the lost souls of the world who need to hear the Truth… we fight on.

The signs of “progress” around us can be mirages. Communism largely has been defeated, but repressive governments have not. We have become a people who brag about liberating people’s minds and bodies, yet millions willingly enslave themselves to drugs and destructive ideologies. Including folks in our very midst.

At home, we have built a society where “sex sells” — libido-drenched imagery in movies, TV, ads, commercials, music, entertainment. And then we should be surprised when people conform their behavior to sexual impulses?

Overseas, our government cuddles up to China, which this week raided yet more Christian churches, jailing worshipers and ordering the installation of portraits of Xi Jingpin. “Acting on American values” — which are…?

The “progress” we applaud is an opiate, calming our sense to the Pentecost of Calamity that is coming in this world.

So. How do we fight these trends?

There is a crisis of the Old Order. We, as citizens – albeit pilgrims and strangers in this world – are stuck with Democracy. Can I mean that? Yes, I choose my words. Democracy in many ways has come to mean a corrupt web of favoritism, corruption, and deceit. Broken promises, cynical use of the System. Secret alliances between Big Money, Big Media, and Big Politics. Running up IOUs to fall upon our children. Consensus-building by pandering.

In the same manner I have also realized that Capitalism has become our enemy, having been transformed into Finance Capitalism, Crony Capitalism. We instead should embrace Free Enterprise, a nice-sounding brand name for our economics, but which scarcely ever has been practiced.

Winston Churchill is supposed to have said that Democracy is the worst form of government… unless you consider the alternatives.

A clever aphorism, but it has the practicality of a sieve when we need to bail the sinking lifeboat. If we recognize that we are in a spiritual crisis, it is a spiritual solution that we need. Political action? God bless activists… but we must look beyond. There are three traditional areas we turn to these days, each more difficult than the next.

The first: CHANGE LAWS. Especially in this system of pandering, of government by propaganda, of Big Lies and False Promises… the cry to “make things right” by new laws is the biggest lie of all. Laws are not magic wands. Prohibition did not work; drug laws are a farce; and gun regulations are chimeras. However, people look to Washington for salvation… in futility.

The second: CHANGE MINDS. Here is where Big Media plays its game. Background players and manipulators control the debate… and, we see increasingly, they monitor, manipulate, and censor internet communication and cell-phone activity. We think we may persuade (and, theoretically, we still can, in small ways) but appeals to reason are merely tolerated, and do not thrive, these days.

The third: CHANGE HEARTS. Aha. The simplest route? Sit down; talk and share; appeal to morality and self-interest; cite ethics and God’s Word. The “hot button” issues – guns, abortion, heresy, homosexuality, war, abuse, divorce, greed, immigration, workplace discrimination, drugs – can’t we all “get along”?

All you have to do in each of these topics is cite a “higher authority”; for Christians it would be the Bible. Secularists would fall back on philosophers. Changing hearts of opponents in such arenas should be the easiest way to begin changing hearts, no? Laws get rusty, and peoples’ minds change. And such remedies are seductive: easy to try, relatively easy to apply, and… very easy to forget. We can wipe our hands, and brush the dust from our sandals, and move on.

No, the hardest of all methods to bring change to our world is to change hearts.

It is the surest way, too. But to change hearts we must be committed, be earnest, be persistent, and be sincere. We must, if necessary, leave some our OWN hearts with those with whom we contend.

Take the current sexual-predator scandals. We can appeal to the Law: “We will make it (more) illegal to do such things.” We can appeal to the Mind: “Wise up! You might get caught!” Or we can appeal to the Heart: “It is wrong. You are harming someone. You disgrace your family. You are displaying a lack of self-respect. You are better than that! It is a sin. Repent, seek forgiveness.”

“Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

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Click: The Wide Gate

11-20-17

This is something of a silly season. These days there is a revolving-door of silliness, actually – fads and fancies of the moment; ever-changing manners and mores.

I am referring to the spate of sex scandals. They are not silly in themselves: I think harassment is deadly serious; and rape should be ranked with murder by our justice system.

What is silly – it is difficult to find a better term – is that this issue is “new.” That people are surprised by the surprises. That anyone pretends that it was not common knowledge that this went on in our culture before a few months ago. It has been a virtual cliché, even the stuff of jokes – by men and women alike – that there were such things as “casting couches,” “favors for promotions,” “indiscretions.”

It is not a surprise but common knowledge that Hollywood producers, Washington politicians, all sorts of celebrities “slept around”; but, more, wielded power through, by, and for sex. The list was long even before Weinstein and the deluge of politicians, actors, and big-shots clogging the headlines lately.

Did President Kennedy’s reputation suffer because of the common knowledge of his affairs? I think he was more often secretly admired by many. Alfred Hitchcock? I think people laugh at the twisted stories. Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton? It depends on your political affiliation, let’s be honest; the same with Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Anthony Weiner, Al Franken.

So this is not new, but reports proliferate as does the selective outrage. As I recently have written, it would be a good thing… if the outrage were to last (not the incidents). I am not so naive to think that the human race will ever be free of dalliances and flirtation, sexual favors and even adultery. But to be frank – not scriptural – about this, a well-functioning and even largely moral society operates on the pragmatic admission that the Big H happens. Hypocrisy. Do I condone it? – that society preaches one way and lives another? Of course not, but on this side of Heaven, the alternative is outright licentiousness.

Which we are near now.

I am convinced of a couple things I have not heard discussed, virtually ever. One is that a large percentage of guys who flaunt their appeal and drape blondes on their arms, usually look gay: they try too hard. Just a theory (think of Hugh Hefner, Exhibit A).

Another theory is that many men who get “caught” in affairs often resemble toads. I am thinking of Newt Gingrich and Roger Ailes and Anthony Weiner and Harvey Weinstein. My theory is that “getting caught” is less important to them than announcing to the world, “Look at me! Women actually want me!” They are willing to endure opprobrium.

A third observation surely is less talked about, but I believe to be true – that as a rule, women are as prone (sorry) as men to seek affairs and use sexuality as a tool, if not a weapon. Mitigating details arise from the relative physical sizes and strengths, and society’s traditional roles, of men and women. But from “attraction” (cosmetics for women; grooming for men; fashion for both) to outright aggressiveness, we are talking about motivations common to all. Maybe not predation, but something of a two-way street. Nature’s old “dance.”

All of which means what? NOT that we should forgive these social horrors as in the past, or ignore them even more; no. It DOES mean that – yes, just as the Bible commands – we should all commit to respecting others. We cannot do that until we all respect ourselves more. And we cannot do that until we all respect the Word of God.

People can hide affairs, sometimes, but they cannot hide from God’s Word.

Another observation: all these sex scandals are really not about sex. Certainly not about love; nor about loneliness or rejection. Excuse me, but [fill in the blank of the rats’ names in the news] often have spouses of evident attractiveness; or a string of such spouses. OR, to be vulgar, in today’s America, they easily can rent sex. To be trashier, they can crawl around alleys and back streets for it.

But I believe most of these people, when you think of how they act, actually desire to be caught. Really? Sure: evangelists subconsciously invite judgment; media stars live to flaunt.

To continue on the Biblical track, and since I have characterized the sexual motivation as secondary, I believe the real sin is that of PRIDE. Predators want to exercise power… they “do” it because they “can”… they derive pleasure from intimidating people. Otherwise self-preservation, if not morality, would determine their actions.

Finally, I have taken notice of all the mea culpas, apologies, denials, excuses, reasons, deflections, and confessions from the predators and their defenders.

You have heard them too. The 21st century’s default apologies – “I am sorry IF I offended someone.” “I really don’t remember.” “I was drunk.” “I agree, it sounds horrible.” “I will get therapy.” And so forth.

You know what we don’t hear? If it is a secular person – “Yes, back then I was a jerk, and in may ways a horrible person. But I have turned my life around, and apologize to the victim, my family, my followers. There were reasons… but no excuses. However, I am a changed person. All this was my fault, and I will be different.” Someone like, say, Sen. Al Franken could say this, and gain respect, perhaps forgiveness. But they never do!

And why can’t Christians – let us say Judge Roy Moore IF he is guilty of the charges, which I am not presuming; but people in his position – say, “There was a time I sinned and made bad choices. Like all of us. But unlike all of us, I have repented; I have been redeemed; I walk with God now as best I can. No excuses; I sinned. But for years I have been a new creature in Christ.” But they never do!

Those are statements we never hear, at press conferences that are never convened.

I am not one to cast stones, believe me, but I search for ways that society can cleanse itself – rather I want to express God’s desires and commands in new ways to new people. That should be the work of all Christ-followers.

If the problem in contemporary life, at this moment, is more Pride than Sex, so is the unfortunate response of too many people today Arrogance and not Humility.

There is too much preying, and not enough praying.

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Click: Jesus, Take a Hold

11-13-17

Curioser and curioser.

Usually I cite the Bible here; often Theodore Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln. Today it is Alice’s turn, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. And I am well aware that there are few new things under the sun, yet things surprise us every week.

The revelations of sexual advances and disgusting behavior are new… yet their existence surely is not. Few people are, or should be, shocked that Hollywood producers and powerful executives, politicians, and bosses have acted this way. In fact it is almost a cliché – one could say a stale stereotype from am unimaginative movie script – that women have had to deal with disgusting suggestions, “casting couches,” and threats of blackballed careers. An afternoon’s work for Harvey Weinstein, by reports at least.

We all knew it, not only the women under pressure. Men occasionally felt bizarre pressures, too – not always sexual, but of the “dirty little secret” varieties, for instance the soft pressure of racial bias and class preference. Homosexuals have been pressured negatively and sometimes favored, as have people of political persuasions.

Racial and sexual injustice are at the forefront these days, and the major surprise to me is that people are acting surprised. For years it was common talk – not whispers – that directors like Alfred Hitchcock were perverts who demanded favors; in politics, Bill Clinton; in sports, Jerry Sandusky… and so on.

I have been on the periphery of some of the players in the Clinton scandals. Kathleen Willey (attacked by Bill in the White House the same day her husband committed suicide) bears emotional scars. I know Lucianne Goldberg, who convinced Linda Tripp to convince Monica Lewinsky to record Pres. Clinton’s phone messages and to keep the infamous blue dress. And 21 years ago I interviewed Gennifer Flowers, who related that Bill Clinton, in pillow talk when she was his mistress, laughed about Hillary having more girl friends than he did.

Seemingly overnight, the “establishments” of Hollywood and the media regard it all as taboo, even when charges are unsubstantiated (as are, at this writing., the accusations against a US Senate candidate). The anomaly is that people are suddenly opposed to sexual predation, not that they are surprised by it. Yesterday an accepted joke, today an offense, tomorrow anathema.

If we sniff a bit of inconsistency, I do not demand that society be consistent! Sometimes we awaken to harmful things, to bad behavior, to sin. The unfortunate pattern in social mores is that what offends people one bright day… they are often inured to in days subsequent. God forbid it will be that way with sexual predators and gross insensitively of the kinds in recent headlines.

The human race has changed its attitude toward slavery, for instance – except when it hasn’t. The public attitudes might be different, but the practice around the world is still with us.

The human race has changed its attitude toward wanton slaughter of animals – except human animals. War, oppression, trafficking, ethnic cleansing, euthanasia, and abortion are rampant.

The human race has changed its attitude toward freedom of expression – largely when threatened by governments; but seemingly comfortable when “soft” censorship exists by Big Media, news monopolies, internet moguls, and dictators of Political Correctness.

I can quote Ralph Waldo Emerson and his Law of Compensation – things get better here, and worse there. Healthier in some ways; toxic in others. Maybe that is how life works.

Let us not be cynical, however. We should pray that what recent societies called Puritanical attitudes – courtesy between the sexes; probity; common respect – might not be fads but a moral palliative, a New Normal.

And while we are praying… if the grosser aspects of the Sexual Revolution might become extinct, if predators might become an endangered species, is it too much to add items to our prayer lists?

Human trafficking? The drug culture? Persecution of Christians and minorities? Child abuse, spousal abuse? Divorce?

Readers of the future will look back on this essay and know, as we cannot, whether the New Puritanism, at least as it concerns Hollywood and Celebrity sexual predators, is a tool for the self-righteous to attack others, or is the beginning of a return to civility and respect, manners and solid social standards. As Emerson might observe, while we conquer physical diseases, we are infected by moral blight. Epidemics.

Writers like H L Mencken and Ralph Barton Perry almost a century ago decried the Puritan strain in the American culture, but such manifestations as Prohibition were purged. There were no crippling effects on the onward march of society. When corrections need correction, they are corrected. When things needing correction are ignored or enjoy benign neglect – enabled, really – they fester. And we die.

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The question, ultimately, is a personal question, because we are the building-blocks of society. And it concerns our hearts, not our political affiliations or backgrounds or economic status. Bennie Tripplett of the Church of God wrote a gospel song made famous by the Blackwood Brothers:

Click: How About Your Heart

11-6-17

George Santayana famously said that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. A cartoon-meme popping up on the web these days has an old guy reflecting that those who DO know history are doomed to watch other people repeat the mistakes.

That IS a danger. Rather, it is a reality. We see it around us, every day.

Without delving into whether this is unprecedented or one of history’s tragic cycles is open to question, but ultimately the question is silly – in the face of reality. In this world, today, it surely seems that a large portion of humankind has gone mad. We have rejected in many ways the concept of Absolute Truth, the possibility of its existence, and the benefits of seeking to know it. History’s masses, let us say in the West, often suffered as a lot in life. However they usually believed in improvement; in advancement; in better things and better days. They believed in themselves, in leaders they respected… in God.

The world, in turning inward instead of outward, living for today without regard to an afterlife, abandoning standards that nurtured their ancestors, of course will reflect disharmony and chaos. Art imitates life, after all (what Plato called “Mimesis”). This should worry us very, very much about the state of things ‘round about us. This world is not one politician or one new fad or one hangover away from righting ourselves. We fool ourselves when we think so. And meanwhile we are diverted by bread-and-circus movies and sports and TV shows and celebrity orgies…

Never since the Flood has humankind, over the face of the earth and not in isolated pockets, rejected Truth and Purity in such determined ways.

So, we fight. We fight as individuals, we fight as nations – or, we give in as individuals and as nations. This truth reflects a crisis of the age, and the great challenge of our time. It has always been our portion to fight – “Life is real; life is earnest,” Longfellow wrote:

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today.

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

About these fights as individuals and as nations, Theodore Roosevelt reminded us that it is beyond our choosing to participate in our fate. Our only choice is whether we play our parts “well or ill.”

For more than a generation America has had a volunteer military. I cannot imagine American society, our country’s youth, ever returning to a military draft. To have to interrupt (or fulfill) your life’s path by having to serve in one of the military branches? Frankly, I wonder even if America were attacked whether the spirit of service and sacrifice, across the population, would exist again as in the past. I wonder, further, that even if there were universal social-work service for one, two, or four years whether American youth would comply.

We have compartmentalized military service. In an intellectual manner we have come to treat the military as slaves. We “thank them for their service,” yet keep our hands clean of their work; the sacrifices; the threats; the separation, injuries, deaths; the stress and trauma. At the same time, sadly, we also separate ourselves from the glory of service, the thrill of victories and fights well fought, and the pride of wearing those uniforms.

That is a tragedy. Unfair to the servicemen and women; robbing the rest of the population of necessary components of healthy souls.

In these days of “advanced warfare techniques” (a sanitized term for more efficient means of maiming and killing) it is almost beyond comprehension how men and women enlist – and often re-enlist, and volunteer for repeated tours – knowingly assuming the collateral “oncoming” of separated families, variable support from the System, oftentime insufficient medical and psychological care as veterans.

We cannot admire these servants enough. Even if we dissent from foreign policies, overseas involvements, controversial missions and nation-building… we must stand in awe and gratitude to the people who serve.

And. For those of us “at home,” we cannot forget that we serve too. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines do our bidding in faraway places. Which makes it easier to be seduced by the feeling that all our battles are being waged by others. But we, all of us, have battles too, every day.

We must fight for our souls, against evil. We fight for our families, against all manners of threats. We fight for our culture, against corruption. We fight for our civilization, against enemies seen and unseen. We fight for our God, against the devil and all his ways, and for the Kingdom that is to come.

Or… we should.

If we don’t fight these battles, we surely will be subsumed.

On Veterans’ Day let us honor those who have served… and let us re-enlist, the rest of us, for the battles of life. Sooner or later, we too will be counted as veterans of those good fights.

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Click: Gone Home