The lack of moral norms... is it just me?

[marshwriter]

@ Hisart - sounds like a good idea!

I've also heard the joke of a preacher telling the congregation that there will be a "gnashing of teeth" and when one man laughs because he doesn't have any teeth left, the preacher says "And those that doesn't have teeth will be supplied with them!"

I've been thinking and praying and reading a lot about this problem the last while. And then I discovered that I am not the only one feeling like this! Probably one of the most difficult things to do is to explain your POV without having people make you out to be a nut. At least, that's how I perceive it.

Marsh

[Torrias]

Pardon the extremely long post, I just have a lot to say on the subject, having faced and pondered it so much over time, and I'd like to offer a bit of perspective that hasn't been represented here yet.

I recently came across F-bomb-filled lyrics to a rap song that I took the time to read because of where I found it. I ended up with tears in my eyes because it was such a beautiful, grittily honest, vulnerable-behind-the-toughness expression of powerful friend-love and bereavement at its loss. Here was someone Jesus died for---a human soul with all its wounded, heavy-burdened loveliness---pouring out his broken heart in the best way he knew how. Singing a threnody in the language he learned in his little piece of the world, and thereby making such a striking picture of "the warrior is a child," with the love and pain and human dignity showing through the stress-cracks in the tough-and-dirty armor.

There is a secular song I love as another piece of expressive art, in which the singer (whether speaking as himself or as his friend or as an imagined character) confronts his conception of God with statements about God taking the last worthwhile things away from him---his wife and unborn son---and concluding "I don't pretend that I love You / 'Cause there is nothing left to lose." Right there is his problem, of course, as I see it; he was only pretending, and that was likely all he was taught to do. The song paints a dark, stormy, foreboding scene, bleak and alone and facing down the loneliness, hopelessness, senselessness, and fear with all he has left: himself. Man without God is a horrific thought; this song is a glimpse into hell. It also moves me to a few tears whenever I hear it, as I experience a love and burdening for lost humanity that does not exist anywhere in my natural (fleshly) makeup.

I'm in the process of reading, off and on, a series of profanity-filled paranormal "romance." There are details I wish weren't in there---partly because I can't/won't recommend the series to most anyone else despite its good qualities---but I skim over them and let them fall away from me as best I can. The characters are wonderful, the story-spinning and writing are engaging, but what draws me the most is the author's ability to---like the rap song above---portray a soul with both its beauty and its ugliness and bring the reader to love that soul as a person. In these books, I see starkly both the extreme depravity and blindness of humanity and also our extreme value in our Creator's eyes. I delight in these people even while aching for their lostness. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Perhaps I'm just unusually judgmental, detached, and self-absorbed by nature, and it takes insights of that harsh and piercing a sort to cut through it to my heart sometimes. As an aside, I can't even sing along through "How Deep the Father's Love For Us" because I get so choked up before even the first verse is done, so no, it isn't just disgusting secular things that do that to me, not by a long shot (and it is so nice when I can let down my guard and sink into worship without worrying about what might get in). I'm talking only about profane culture because that's the point of this thread. My husband and I both think in terms of what one might call metaculture; appreciating certain songs, books, movies, etc. for how they speak and how they portray the human condition and human understanding of it. The darkest places inadvertently show the shape of the Light by its absence, and every story and every kind of speech to ever come from humanity tells part of the great Story, whether hero or villain or tortured captive. To quote God addressing Satan in Tolkien's cosmology, "And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined." (Silmarillion) I bet that principle ticks Satan off to no end...

So, with my habit of placing the whole point of something at the end of way too much talking...I feel the revulsion too, and there are a few songs that I simply turn the radio off for, but the revulsion is for the most part strongly mixed with an awed delight in what God created and then died to save. What I don't like at all is vanilla-flavored people-pleasing and disguised humanism in the industry that is Christian pop culture. But even there, I definitely have favorites in Christian pop music. I yearn toward the time when all the darkness and pain of this world cease to exist as heaven and earth are burned up and created anew, and at last we can truly move forward and know God (and each other) as He knows us. But until then, I have no problem using whatever lenses present themselves for studying, appreciating, and learning to love the strange things around me called people, and the fractured facets of our Father in them all.

[ignominius]

Social and moral boundaries have been slowly and deliberately eroded since the 1960's. It now culminates in a 'me' society. This is probably less true in the US but here in the UK we saw it with the recent riots that took place. These so-called riots were nothing but a cover for wanton thievery. Gadget shots, shoe and clothes shops were deliberately targeted. CCTV footage even showed some of the looters trying on their haul before leaving the scene of their crime.

When challenged by local residents , the general response was usually in the form of 'well everyone else is doing it' or 'I'm just getting something back for my taxes', or 'It's my right, I don't have these things and other people do'. But it's not just the consumerism and materialism, it's the sexualisatoin of everything, from music, art, film, newspapers and no-one is able to avoid it unless you live a hermit on a scottish island somewhere.

The root cause of it I believe is the introduction of secular humanism through socialism and communism. This is something that until Bill Clinton and Barack Obama came into power, the US citizens managed to resist. Now even in US society I see the same sickness that is pervading Western Europe. It's the moral relativism and worse still the attempts to drag every one down to the same lowest common denominator rather than the American ideal which is try to drag everyone up to the hightest possible standard.

It's got to the point where I am selective in what I watch, read and listen to. Although I still go out with my mates for a quiet pint at the pub and watch the footie (soccer) on the big screen at the pub.

Just another thought, I can remember I time when as a child, any where from 17/18 yrs old and down, you back-chatted an adult you'd get a clip around the ear or reported to your parents who, being embarrased by their offsprings bad behaviour would administer the clip around the ear. Try that now with the 'youth' - social services and the police will have you in court so fast you won't be able to blink. As a boy, if child was heard swearing on a bus, that child would be put off straight away, no questions, no buts. Also, it was unheard of for men to swear in front of women...they might swear together in company, but in front of women and children they would mind their manners..now even the women swear and to extent that would make a trooper blush! Moral standards it seems have gone out of the window.

We need our governments to stop pretending that there is something faintly embarrassing about Christianity or that it in someway is outdated. It provides a moral framework that works and worked for nearly two thousand years before the socialist liberal elite worked their claws in.

[yoda47]

ignominius, you're right, except it didn't start with Clinton in the US. Communists have been working towards that kind of a society since the 1930's. It took them a long time to work up to it, since the country was founded on godly principles, so they couldn't just up and fight for it. They started in Hollywood, correctly figuring that if they disguised the message as entertainment, it would slowly numb the populous into accepting things they never would if Biblical standards were directly challenged (how many of us watch things on TV that we would never stand for if it happened in our neighborhood?)
Then McCarthy caught on and called them on it. They promptly vilified him (easy to do when you control the media... okay, he used all the finesse of a sledge hammer, and possibly went to far, but he was still right)
After this the communists focused on Plan B, already in effect, the schools.
Prayer, then God, then the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag was kicked out of school. Evolution was then not only allowed to be taught, but mandated, and no alternatives allowed.

Now, a whole generation has gone from pre-school (another strategy: get the kids away from those Bible-thumping parents and into a nice secular school as early as possible) through collage being deliberately taught secular-humanistic atheism.

It's not a surprise that the U.S. has declined. Satan has been very busy here, for a long time, and most Christians haven't noticed.

[ignominius]

I think Christianity is under persecution, it's not so noticeable in the US yet, but it's happening. Here in the UK Christians are vilified for their faith in many quarters especially by the humanist left. I've noticed in the US for instance that there was a Mayor that had a plaque with the 10 commandments written on it. The plaque was removed (not by the Mayor), because of the separation of religion and state (that's the claim), but it's a subtle attack on our faith.

Here in the UK it's also quite subtle, companies like British Airways will allow a Muslim woman to wear a Hijab as a symbol of her faith - it's not an actual requirement of the faith, whilst a Christian woman is not allowed to wear a cross (both employees). A council employee was suspended for displaying a palm cross during Easter last year, in his council van because 'it was offensive to other religions' - yet other religions are allowed to carry or display their religious symbols/emblems without problem.

The problem as I see it is that Christians are no longer fighting for their faith (I mean non-violently). They are not standing up to the sneering humanists and atheists. It's almost as if we were embarrassed to be Christians

[newburydave]

Oh it's happening in the US too. This whole world lies in the wicked one and anyone living for Jesus will be assaulted.

I've studied a lot of history and dark as it may be now, it's been that dark before. AND God intervened time and again to revive His work of redemption despite the wickedness in the world.

Some interesting studies, that might help your faith, would be the social and moral conditions of England in the 1700's just prior to the Methodist revival (Pre 1730's and 1740's). Or another would be what we actually know about the Roman culture and public morals preceding and immediately following the times of Jesus.

God sends special help and power where the infection of Sin is the greatest. I encourage you all to pray for this for our generation and ask Him to make us part of that help from on high. Soveriegn revival of redemption is God's chosen work that He seems to delight in more than in most others.

Look up He still reigns

Write on Beloved siblings

SGD
dave

[ignominius]

Thank you for those words of wisdom Dave, Sometimes it's easy to forget that He is still there and his plan for us is still rolling on....it is just that sometimes I look at the moral decay and feel great dispair, especially as I became a grandfather recently and I wonder what sort of world my granddaughter is going to inherit.

[newburydave]

My thoughts too. We've seven grandchildren and perhaps there'll be a # 8 soon.

Our pastor preached on "The Illusion of Control" last Sunday from the pasage in Mat. 24 about Jesus coming back as a thief in the night.

Synopsis of his main themes:
Any and all "Security" in this world is just an illusion.
Everything is always changing and we're not in control.
He is our only security.
Being In Him who is in control of all things is the only control any of us have in this world. (He plants his footsteps on the sea; and rides up on the storm.)

Now why would our Heavenly Father ride on storms? Only reason I can think of is because that's where we (his beloved bride) lives, in the thick of the storm.

Let's all sing a chorus of "Our God Reigns" and make the devil grind his teeth.

SGD
dave

My wife thought is was a profoundly timely message.