How to keep your house united in two easy steps:
1. Love good
2. Hate evil.
Talking with a friend recently, we reflected on the TV
shows we grew up with in the 50's and 60's. Shows like "Donna Reed", "My Three Sons", "Bonanza", "Leave It To Beaver" and others. These dramatizations and the people who produced them reflected a deep cultural commitment to goodness. The focus of the stories was on individual character and the lessons one can glean from life to become a better person: more mature, respectful, a better leader, worker, parent, person. By focusing on the responsibility of the individual to grow and become a better member of society, society itself benefited.
Contrast that with modern sitcoms, music videos and
The advent of graphic media has provided rich opportunity to influence masses of people of which kings and tyrants throughout history could only have dreamed. Bypassing the natural filters of reason and truth, aiming at the emotional center, modern society has been led to accept increasingly more noxious ideas, behaviors and practices.
Walk through the halls of today's schools and see if you think the media hasn't had an impact on the attitudes, language, behavior and conversation of our youth. If you grew up on 50’s and 60’s tv ---and have been living under a rock-- prepare to be shocked!
Goodness builds. Evil destroys.
There are two primary ways of looking at the world, the human race:
People who view the world through the lens of the Right
(Right for Righteousness) tend to try to make the world a better place by being
better people, i.e., kind, fair, forgiving, reasonable, generous, God-fearing
and freedom-loving.
People of the Modern (i.e., Marxist) Left try to circumvent the natural demand of ideals by demanding what people ought to believe and how to think and act. These influencers tend to be impertinent, bossy, unreasoning, unforgiving, unrealistic, and unholy.
In that sense, the world has always been divided. But Human
beings are created for Oneness. First, with our Creator. Then with one
another.
Here is a profound thought from friend George MacDonald:
"There is more love in the world than anything else...but the best love and the individual in whom love is supreme are the rarest of all things."
As humans, especially humans living in society together, we make many claims upon the attitudes and actions of others. These claims show themselves in a variety of ways including, but not limited to, family relations, community efforts, commercial advertising, social interaction, and governmental rules.
What is the strongest claim we have as humans upon those who invent, innovate, enervate, and usher in the future; whose skill level, job description, election or simple interest position them to best influence society? Is not our claim for them to put forward our highest and best ideals and behavior?
- Grade A - Exceptional: the childlike in faith, righteousness, humility, sincerity, lovingkindness and grace.
- Grade B - Acceptable: the reasonably mature, responsible and altruistic
- Grade C - Passable: the coarse and careless sprinkled with enough personality to make them harmless and friendly.
- Grade D - Deplorable: the immature, brash, arrogant, impertinent, greedy.
- Grade E - Incorrigible: malevolent, malicious, criminal
- Grade F - Abominable: the beastly vile.
"In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him." Genesis 4:3-8
"By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks." Hebrews 11:4
"We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." 1 John 3:12
“The account of Cain and Abel is remarkable for its unique combination of brevity and depth. In a few short sentences, it outlines two diametrically opposed modes of being—both responses to the emergence of self-consciousness and the knowledge of good and evil detailed in the story of Adam and Eve. Cain’s mode of being – resentful, arrogant and murderous – arises because his sacrifices are rejected by God. This means that his attempts to give up something valuable in the present to ensure prosperity in the future are insufficient. He fails, in consequence, to thrive, as he believes he should, and becomes bitter, resentful and murderous. Abel’s mode of being is characterized, by contrast, by proper sacrifice – by the establishment of balance between present action and future benefit. This ensures his personal and social success, accruing over time. Unfortunately, it also makes him the target of Cain’s malevolence.”
-Jordan Petersen, Genesis lectures."There is a natural antagonism between those who answer the redemptive call to a higher, rarer, truer humanity and those for whom "vulgarity, vile contentment, self-admiration and unbelief" give volume and cover to a more articulate and peremptory attack on the “common good uncommonly developed.”
- Some people are superior to others. (It is the "credentialed" vs the "common" man.)
- No ideas are Superior to other ideas. (Except what the credentialed deem superior, thus Christianity, for example, is no better or worse as a lifestyle than Islam. But Global Climate Change places a demand on everyone's lifestyle.)
