Worldview as Prose

There is a poignancy to the imaginative that in many ways is more powerful than mere fact or logic.  I feel very much that this is the case in our current day more that it has ever been.  If we ever hope to recapture the hearts of a generation for God, We need to give them more than a logical apologetic. We need to give them an apologetic of the imaginative. To outline the glory of the living God in such a way as to burn into the mind for all time His beauty.  This will never happen until we ourselves have had our minds eye seared by his majesty. The Hebrew  word for glory is כבד, transliterated kabod and pronounced (K-B-D). The original meaning of the word is literal “weight” or “heaviness.  It is only when we learn to stand daily beneath the weight of the glory of God in our lives that we will deliver an apologetic that is robust and powerful, multidimensional and filled with a power that goes far beyond our mere intellect.  The goal of the following prose is to kindle the imagination.  To illuminate the darkness of the modern mind today. For the Christian worldview I have written nothing however, in the hope that we in the coming season may be the instruments by which God writes the story of his glory.  I am certain that its beauty will take our breath away.

The Relativist

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin, 

We believe everything is OK. as long as you don’t hurt anyone;

to the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage. 

We believe in the therapy of sin.We believe that adultery is fun. 

We believe that sodomy’s OK. We believe that taboos are taboo. 

We believe that everything’s getting better despite evidence to the contrary. 

The evidence must be investigated And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there’s something in horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons. 

Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.

He was a good moral teacher though we think His good morals were bad. 

We believe that all religions are basically the same- at least the one that we read was. 

They all believe in love and goodness. 

They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation. 

We believe that after death comes the Nothing,

Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing. 

If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its compulsory heaven for all 

excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn.  

We believe in Masters and Johnson:

What’s selected is average, What’s average is normal, What’s normal is good. 

We believe in total disarmament. 

We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed. 

Americans should beat their guns into tractors and the Russians would be sure to follow. 

We believe that man is essentially good. It’s only his behavior that lets him down. 

This is the fault of society. Society is the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society. 

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him

Reality will adapt accordingly. The universe will readjust, History will alter. 

We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth. 

We believe in the rejection of creeds, And the flowering of individual thought.

 Postscript:

If chance be the Father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky. 

and when you hear: State of Emergency! Sniper Kills Ten!

Troops on Rampage! Youths go Looting! Bomb Blasts School! 

It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.  

-Creed  by Steve Turner

The Hedonist

Well it’s not all analysis or mathematic expression 

oh all the simple things in life are not small

and all your daily drama and the politics of pleasure

well they really do not matter much at all

so let your words start spilling out against your will

and let your love mingle with mine

close your eyes, look at me, open up your heart you’ll see that we can share a moment, 

a moment in time 

Tell me what’s so bad, about feeling good

Tell me what’s so bad, about feeling good 

No guilt. All Pleasure. C’mon I wanna hear you yell it now

No guilt. All Pleasure. C’mon everybody yell it now

No guilt. All Pleasure. I wanna hear you yell it baby

No guilt. All Pleasure. C’mon everybody…Tell me what’s so bad, about feeling good 

–Whats so bad about feelin good- Ben lee

The Nihilist

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves… For myself, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.”

- Aldous Huxley in Ends and Means

The Christian?

The Christian and Politics

Below is an excerpt from the book unchristian, an excellent critique of modern Christianity from the perspective of the outsider to the faith.  This chapter is available for free in its entirety from the authors website.  What are your thoughts about Christianity and politics?  Sound off in the comments, or join the forum to dig into the discussion.  

Have you ever played the word-association game?  Just to refresh your memory, it works like this: someone mentions a word or phrase, and you must name the first thing or person that comes to mind. For instance, if you hear the phrase Chicago Bulls, whom or what do you think of? What about Scientology? Islam? Now, consider Christianity. In our survey, we asked young people to identify the best-known Christians, encouraging respondents to mention anyone who came to mind. Among sixteen- to twenty-nine-year olds outside of Christianity, the top five leader associations included the Pope (mentioned by 16 percent of young outsiders), George W. Bush (13 percent), Jesus (9 percent), Billy Graham (7 percent), and Martin Luther King Jr. (6 percent). Among young churchgoers, the top three included Mr. Graham (29 percent), followed by the Pope (17 percent) and the president (17 percent). Young Christians also mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. (8 percent), Jesus (7 percent), Mother Teresa (7 percent), Mel Gibson (7 percent), and James Dobson (5 percent). There were smaller levels of awareness for other Christian leaders. What is your impression of these findings?

"It is ironic, of course, that Jesus is not at the top of these lists of  “famous Christians.” Given the fact that the survey was focusedon “present-day Christianity”

Perhaps young people did not think to mention the original.  Still, did you notice that GeorgeW. Bush is more likely to be thought of as a Christian leader than are clergy or other influential Christians? In another portion of our research, we found that half of young outsiders said they could think of specific Christian leaders in politics, which means outsiders recognize Christians in politics more readily than in any other sector, including music, movies, sports, or business. Even young churchgoers are more likely to recognize famous Christians involved in politics than other arenas, except music. In some ways, it is not surprising that politicians are so frequently linked to beliefs and to faith. Christians have made a concerted and coordinated effort to engage the political process in recent decades, so their activity in the political realm can be hard to miss. This profile is intensified in part because the faith of candidates becomes a news item during campaigns. Since political decisions affect every citizen’s life, the connection between politics and faith—as well as the link between people’s perceptions of the political environment and their views of Christians—is inescapable. And so for these reasons and others I will discuss in this chapter, Christians are now perceived among Mosaics and Busters as too involved in politics. To be more precise, they think of us as motivated primarily by political goals and as promoting a right-wing agenda. The fact that there is consternation among young people about the role of religion in politics probably does not surprise you. The important questions are why young outsiders believe Christians are motivated by a political agenda, whether any of the concerns are legitimate, and what should be done, if anything at all, about the perception.