Wake Up, America!

LITTLE BY LITTLE AND INCH BY INCH OUR CONVERSATION has changed. Someone feels abused and goes ballistic. Another thinks that their dog is not being given proper respect and sues the “offender” for abuse. An old man is driving too slow and it sets off a chain reaction of anger. A coach pulls a player off the soccer field and the parent runs on the field yelling. Students start a petition to remove a 200 year old statue on their campus because it causes them trauma. A professor brings legal action against a student for texting a critique of his class. And on and on. Now the NAACP of California claims that the Star Spangled Banner is racist.

Connor Friedersdorf wrote the following in The Atlantic in the April 19, 2016 edition:
“How did American culture arrive at these moments? A new research paper by Nick Haslam, a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, offers as useful a framework for understanding what’s going on as any I’ve seen. In “Concept Creep: Psychology’s Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology,” Haslam argues that concepts like abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice, “now encompass a much broader range of phenomena than before, ”expanded meanings that reflect “an ever-increasing sensitivity to harm.”

WAKE UP, AMERICA!

Our foundations are cracking and most of us are skipping down the road clueless.  Destructive political ideologies are capitalizing on our lack of historical perspective.  Recently, a juror asked the judge in the Senator Menendez trial, “What is a senator?” The man on the street doesn’t even know what the Bill of Rights is – he knows what he thinks are his rights, but not what your’s are.
It seems that in the Christian faith, we have been subjected to a belief creep. Foundational theology is “old stuff” to the majority and is pooh-poohed by the young. Rock music, flashing lights, churchy entertainment – “that’s where it’s at, man!” He says this as he stands there in his shorts. “I’m meeting the pastor at the beach, hurry.”  Theology is passe’ and archaic. “If I had to listen to theology on Sunday, I wouldn’t go.”  OK, how bout a little sermon stuff with a Christian twist?
Is what you believe important? “Hey Man, don’t you realize? Sugar is in. Spinach is out.”

“THIS IS WHAT THE LORD SAYS: ‘Stand where the roads cross and look.  Ask where the old way is, where the good way is, and walk on it. If you do, you will find rest for yourselves.’”
Jeremiah 6:16 (ncv)