As Halloween approaches, let us consider again how we entertain ourselves. There is nothing that we do that does not reflect our relationship with God. What we see; What we say; What we hear; How we act: All these aspects of our lives are accountable to the relationship we have to our Creator. I wrote a post last year for a friend’s blog about horror films and wanted to put it out there again for you to chew on (Click on the Red Link Above) There are other perspectives concerning this topic presented on his blog as well, so I encourage you to see where you currently “land” on the issue. Thanks for honoring me with taking the time to read my blog.

I wasn’t going to write anything concerning this issue and I honestly didn’t even have time to write anything of much substance, but I’ve had a few people ask me my opinion on the whole Chick-Fil-A situation and the best way I feel I can do that is by giving them my understanding of the thought process behind those who are condemning Chick-Fil-A. So here is my assessment:

LOVE = GOOD

RACISM = BAD

Restricting the rights of miniroty groups is RACISM

Homosexuals are simply another miority group

Being anti Gay Marriage is the same as RACISM

Homosexuals simply want to LOVE

Being anti Gay Marriage is anti-LOVE

All reasonable peoples believe that LOVE is GOOD and RACISM is BAD

All peoples desire to progress past RACISM

Groups that support racist/anti-Gay Marriage beliefs should be punished/dismantled

Owner of Chick-Fil-A is anti-Gay Marriage

Chick-Fil-A is popular with many citizens

Chick-Fil-A has a strong presence in culture

Chick-FIl-A will be used by owner to further anti-Gay Marriage agenda

CONCLUSION OF PRO GAY MARRIAGE/HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE ADVOCATES:

Chick-Fil-A is BAD and must be punished/dismantled unless they (especially their owner) agree with the cultural consensus of those who agree with the homosexual lifestyle and gay marriage, which is GOOD

The ideology and actions listed above is representative of what is meant by culture wars. It has everything to do with the consensus that is found among the relative opinions of those who desire to live within community. In order to sound like you have a stronger argument than someone else it is tempting you use terms such as “rights,” “civil,” and “natural” when discussing the socio-political options. The different sides of an issue seek to find consensus on the issues by suggesting that their opinion is a more accurate assessment of the expression of the ideal than that of the other side/sides. Thus, the idea of “love” is used as the highest ideal and all sides involved suggest that they have the market on understanding what love is.

My short little response here is full of other potential discussions that need to be addressed, but if you want to check out a well written article on the subject read Ross Douthat’s piece I have listed below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/douthat-defining-religious-liberty-down.html?ref=rossdouthat

I haven’t been single for…well…for a long time. Although there was a time in the Dark Ages when I understood the unsatisfied longing for intimate companionship, I have to listen to the testimony of others these days in order to remind myself what it is like. In some ways my wife and I have been blessed to have been surrounded by single adults for so many years. I believe that it has been a check on what could have become an inclination to only see a “functional” Christian life through the language of marriage and parenting. Instead, we have listened to and learned from those around us who struggle to make Christ the center of their life, without the easy crutch of using marriage as a metaphor. My friend Jonathan Nichols is such a person.

I got to know Jonathan about 5 years ago and have been building a closer friendship with him ever since. I had some false assumptions about him when we first met that I have since shoved aside and have taken the time to listen to Jonathan and his struggles and victories. Just recently I had another such talk with Jonathan and I was greatly encouraged. We talked around our usual topics of Bono and the Church, but we also talked about singleness and hope. At some point in our conversation he handed me his phone and said that he wanted me to read a poem that he had written. I was excited to read what Jonathan had written, in part because he is a very talented and imaginative man and also because he looks into life deeply. He is a dear friend and I was blessed by what he wrote. I will leave you with his poem, for it needs no further explanation. Let his words sit in your soul for a while and see what comes of it.

It Is Funny: reflections on a birthday

 

It is raining gently outside my window.

I hear so much during a rain.

 

A loud truck rumbles by on the road

but somehow, to my ear, it is almost noiseless

next to the soft spray of rain

from its tires.

 

A makeshift stream shuttles down the

gravel drive, shooting out the drainpipe.

Reminds me of a creek but I already

know that when I look for it tomorrow

I will find no trace. I’ve looked before.

 

Raindrops, hanging on to all the leaves and

branches, drip at last when a breeze

comes through. They make it sound like

it has suddenly begun to rain again

as they all let go together.

 

And I am thirty-nine years old. And I

think it is funny- I have not changed

much since high school but I am not

nearly the same.

 

I think that I am old to be a single man

but I feel young to have found the at last.

It is the at last I have sought from infancy

and now I have it! For I have learned

at last that there is no at last. Not here.

 

As much as I desire it, there is no final satisfaction

on earth. There is no thing, no person, no event or

occasion which can deliver an at last. All things will

disappoint, will fall, will fail.

 

I glory in a truth that is not my own

but which has been given to me:

Christ alone is the at last, and this truth,

no matter when you learn it, makes you young!

Indeed, I am born again, made alive in Him.

 

I thank You, God, for all that You teach me. I want diligently to submit to You and to seek and obey the Father’s will.

I have seen new things that You have gifted me with. Gifts that humble me and calm me and make me silent before You. Lead me in Your way everlasting!

 

Rain has begun to fall again. I know I do not

hear every drop that touches ground but I do discern

a lot. Give me ears to hear and heal, Father, and

may I speak the words You give to me.

 

– Jonathan Nichols

This past week an open blog conversation has been taking place concerning the sub-culture of the so-called “post-partisan” evangelical Christians. The first post was by David French, a conservative political activist, who outlined his journey from reactionary idealist to conservative pragmatist. In so doing he also gave his two cents worth to a general group of young evangelical idealists, who specifically included Jonathan Merritt. The following statement sums up French’s challenge to these young evangelicals:

“So, “post-partisan” Christians, please ponder this: First, as the price for your new path, are you willing to forego any effective voice at all for unborn children?  Are you willing to keep silent when the secular world demands your silence?  After all, that is the true price of non-partisanship — silence.” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2012/05/23/an-open-letter-to-young-post-partisan-evangelicals/

After reading French’s post, Merritt responded with a post accusing French of using faulty logic and posing false choices:

“I have worked on a number of political issues—from caring for creation, to protecting the poor, to promoting peace—without apology. But I believe that Christians can be good citizens without enlisting ourselves in a war drummed up by politicians and lobbyist and advocacy groups. We can hold passionate positions without adopting the sour tone and nasty tactics that reflect the values of Washington rather than the Kingdom of God. There’s nothing redemptive in Christian leaders and pastors advocating for their values by resorting to name-calling, angry rhetoric, and ruthless marginalization tactics. This is the legacy of the culture wars.” http://jonathanmerritt.com/blogs/news/faultylogicandfalsechoicesaresponsetodavidfrench.html

I don’t personally know David French, but Jonathan Merritt and I went to grad school together and I have had some brief exchanges with him. Although I do not agree with all that Mr. French stands for or promotes, I agree with his general assessment of those who might be categorized as “fed-up idealists.” It appears as if Merritt is suggesting that communicating about, garnering support for, and voting on important moral issues is simply “a war drummed up by politicians and lobbyist and advocacy groups.” I say it appears because it is not exactly clear where Merritt’s line of acceptable engagement with politics begins and ends. In America we supposedly have a representative government and thus politicians are to speak for the people in their constituency on issues. Lobbyists, in theory, exist to apply pressure on politicians to act on issues important to somebody. Advocacy groups exist to essentially do the same thing as lobbyists, albeit with a little less suspicion involved as to their motives. I realize that the above institutions and roles are all broken, and in my understanding of reality there is nothing anyone can do to completely fix them. Could these institutions better reflect the will of God? I believe so, but then again that doesn’t seem to be the issue on trial in this conversation.

Merritt states that he has “worked on a number of political issues—from caring for creation, to protecting the poor, to promoting peace—without apology.” Why? Why did he find those issues worthy to participate in on a political level if he did not find justification in a faith of his own? If he does pull justification from his faith to interact with those issues on a political level then how does he differentiate himself from those “culture warriors” that he confidently speaks against? Will he continue to work, politically speaking, on issues of immigration, environment, and human trafficking while denigrating those that work on the issues of homosexuality and abortion? While he accuses French of using faulty logic and presenting false choices he continues to do the exact same thing. To suggest that his blogging efforts and morning show tours is not somehow a form of advocacy and lobbying is confusing at best. Just because he wrote a book that states that we should care more about the Gospel does not mean that he is not somehow engaged in a culture war. He might have different terms of engagement and different goals, but he is still engaged in the same sort of war that he accuses others of engaging in. And maybe that is ultimately what Jonathan is getting at. Maybe he is simply suggesting that he does not like the way some people are carrying out their culture war as opposed to how he thinks it should be carried out. However, I would suggest that if he were to carry his foundational convictions to a logical end that he would need to go live with an Anabaptist community that seeks to avoid engaging with popular political and sociological mediums that do not strictly communicate the simple Gospel message. I don’t think that is what Jonathan has in mind, and that is where his conflicted position lies. I believe that what many “post-partisan” evangelical Christians are saying to the world at large is, “our hill on which to die is closer to you than theirs!” Accept for the fact that many of them no longer openly admit that they will die on those hills at all. I believe that many of them would, if push came to shove, but they have decided that stating any Christian belief that might “marginalize” a non-Christian is to be muffled and kept in private. If, however, they respond, “we do not have a hill on which to die at all,” then I would suggest that they have bought into the lie of what Oliver O’Donovan calls “historicism.” In fact, this is what I believe is happening. Younger Christians are buying into a worldview that says that Christ has redeemed human history through his incarnation and therefore human social progress will eventually culminate in worldwide peace (their version of the reign of Christ). I don’t think that every young evangelical has bought into this ideology lock, stock, and barrel, but they are naively buying into ideas that are inherently connected to historicism and are in danger of eventually walking through that door without more careful self-examination.

I don’t claim that Republicans are immune from the ideology of historicism any more than I believe that Democrats are immune from utilitarian arguments for the use of violence. It is at this point that I agree whole heartedly with my brother Jonathan. Christians are ultimately bound by a relationship that asks allegiance above every other relationship. God has made many allowances for our involvement in other relationships with the understanding that we conduct ourselves within those relationships in a manner that represents Him. Therefore, I also agree with Jonathan when he says that, “we can hold passionate positions without adopting the sour tone and nasty tactics that reflect the values of Washington rather than the Kingdom of God. There’s nothing redemptive in Christian leaders and pastors advocating for their values by resorting to name-calling, angry rhetoric, and ruthless marginalization tactics.” I might call into question what his understanding of “ruthless marginalization tactics” is, but overall I agree with him that these qualities stated above are unbecoming of Christians. My only concern of his rebuke of ungodly attitudes found within certain Christians who are active within socio-political initiatives is that it seems that he is being….well…partisan. It seems as though Jonathan is using the term “culture war” like a pejorative tag that he places on all rhetoric that doesn’t fit his idea of what the Christian witness in the culture should look like, while in turn applauding the “socially just” rhetoric of those Christians who steer away from the particular topics and attitudes that he sees as volatile.

I don’t know Jonathan that well at all, but I think I would be friends with him. It sounds like we have a lot in common and that we both want God’s will to be done over and against any initiative put forth by fallen humanity that might detract from the work of the Kingdom. I haven’t read Jonathan’s book, but I plan on reading it soon and I ‘m pretty sure that I will be encouraged by it. I don’t think that Mr. French would disagree with me. I think that ultimately all Mr. French is saying is that this disenchanted feeling felt by young evangelicals towards fallen social structures that many Christians interact with is nothing new and will not be fixed by those who see the flaws inherent in the system. It is precisely when this disenchanted feeling is no longer present that we all need to reexamine what we are hoping for and in whom we are placing our faith. This is an indictment against those Christians who sell their hopes to both the political left and the political right.

Denny Burk also makes some relevant observations of this conversation between Merritt and French on his blog: http://www.dennyburk.com/entering-the-fray-with-merritt-and-french/

This blog of mine is definitely a place where I focus on important discussions on morality, spirituality, religion, culture, and politics. However, more than anything else this blog is a place for me to discuss life. The topics I just listed are certainly a big part of life, but so are jobs, moves, family, friendships, personal growth, and new experiences. This particular post will touch more on the later list than the former.

My life over the last 6 years has been complex, to say the least. During those years my family has lived in 2 different cities, 4 different neighborhoods, and 5 different houses. I have had 5 different jobs in 4 different careers. All through these past 6 years God has sustained us. He has confronted our decisions with encouragement and reproof. He has allowed us to go through times of plenty and want. He has confronted us with financial, relational, and physical challenges that have tested the faith by which we relate with Him. There is still much work to do in our family, but we are encouraged by the presence of God in our lives and are hopeful for the future.

This past year has been a great blessing and challenge to me. I was finally given my first opportunity to teach in an undergraduate classroom last fall. For the last two semesters I have felt more fulfilled in an occupation than I ever have before. My experiences of teaching at both a private Christian college and a public community college were both very informative and stretching. I am blessed to have had both those opportunities. One of the classes I teach at Bryan College (Dayton, TN) is called Christian Worldview. It is a very interesting class that is best described as a complex mixture of comparative religions, ethics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and theology. In short, it is right down my alley. Bryan’s mission and vision is very intimately tied to the idea of a Christian Worldview, so much so that they have a whole department called the Worldview Formation department within a broader Spiritual Formation department. This Worldview Formation department is the purpose for me writing this post.

I have been offered, and I have accepted, the position of Assistant Director of Worldview Formation/Instructor of Christian Thought at Bryan College. There isn’t currently a Director of Worldview Formation, so at this point I will be acting director until a time down the road when one is hired. This is the greatest occupational blessing of my life. I am very excited about the opportunities this position will afford me to both teach Christian Worldview and Ethics as well as help cultivate the school’s Christian Worldview focus.

I cannot say enough about the community at Bryan College. They have welcomed me and my family with open arms and have treated us with genuine care and concern. They have been honest and encouraging, prayerful and thoughtful, and patient and exacting with us. I want to communicate special thanks to Paul Boling of the Christian Thought department and Matt Benson of the Spiritual Formation department. Paul took what can only be described as a chance (or a special assignment from God) by hiring me to teach last fall, and Matt peered into my very soul and amazingly decided that I was still sane enough for the job. I would have to list an enormous amount of names in order to give due appreciation to everyone, but the Spiritual Formation and Christian Thought teams both encouraged me in ways that I feel I needed during this time of transition in my life.

I do not know what wonderful and challenging experiences the future holds for me and my family, but we trust the Lord and we are excited to be where we are. My family and I could use a bit of a rest, and we feel like the Bryan College community and Dayton, TN will help foster a healthy and restful atmosphere. I step into my new position on July 2 and we will be seeking to move up to Dayton late this summer. Please continue to be in prayer for us during this time of transition and challenge. Please pray that God will provide our family with a home that we can nurture our family in and offer hospitality to others in. We’ll keep you posted on what God is doing in and through our lives on this leg of the journey. May God bless and keep each one of you in His loving grace.

Please visit the Worldview Formation informational page at http://www.bryan.edu:

http://www.bryan.edu/wvf

My Incompetent Lustmoth,

So he actually gave into the Enemy’s repugnant lie.  I had a feeling we had lost this one after your second letter.  Do not fret; your ability will grow with your pain and hunger.  Our Father below will not allow any of his servants to remain novices in this business of temptation, distraction, and destruction.  I realize that you might think that you have lost this battle and should begin another but I will inform you of the contrary.

We almost do more damage to “would be christians” through real members of the enemy’s camp than we do through our many loyal subjects.  We have a wonderful way of keeping the lesser beings in all but total ignorance in regards to how the Enemy would have them live.  When they stumble through this world with little knowledge of their master they do Him a grand disservice and us a great act of kindness.  We have so many infiltrators that live among their brood and so many false doctrines engrained in their thinking that the momentum of this battle is still on our side.  We can still use and abuse this young man for many a year and in ways that we might have not been able to if he were not a subject of the Enemy’s.  I find it quite cruel the way the Enemy offers so much hope at the beginning of the relationship and then allows us to ravage them like wolves in a sheep pen.  The ignoramuses should have realized that the only reason the Enemy says He cares for them is so that He can gather them unto Himself and say that He has more converts than our Father Lucifer.  But, as we well know, our Father has won at least seven out of ten of the beasts for his collection throughout the history of this planet, which is far more than the Enemy will ever achieve with any of His useless “revivals”.  I must keep to the subject at hand for I could write all day about our Father’s accolades.  I will now list to you some of the wonderful devices and lies we have set up within the Enemy’s camp.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier letters, we have whole denominations set up with the Enemy’s name on them that we can use to keep the young patient from becoming more steeped in the ways of the Enemy.  Some of these denominations are so full of our people that no more than one to five percent of them actually have any sort of tie to the Enemy Himself.  We also have some denominations that use the name of the Enemy’s detestable Son that don’t even have any real believers in Him among them.  Both of these devices are so successful because so many of His converts never spend time with Him or read the instruction book that He so painstakingly preserved for them.  This disease results in doctrines being developed based on corrupted human logic and limited perspectives of their experiences, which we have manipulated beyond recognition.  I am happy to say that His subjects are more interested in our media than they are His will, which leads me to another device of ours.

Where as in earlier generations we had to wait patiently for one of our lies, false doctrines, or demented pleasures to spread throughout this obscure globe, now we have the great privilege of sending a barrage of them across the earth in a fraction of a second.  The humans have developed such tools as web-sites and cable TV so that we no longer have to personally whisper in everyone’s ear to tempt them to think on things that are prohibited by our Enemy.  Half of our work is already done before we ever arrive.  I would have to send to our statistical database to claim the exact numbers but I believe that at least 50% of the men in the Enemy’s army behave in some sexually immoral behavior on a regular basis.  With the help of loosening moral standards within the societies on earth we have been able to present scrumptiously lustful images to “godly men” that far surpass anything they could have trumped up in their own fantasies.  We have brought sexual connotations into almost every program on their television channels and have disguised them with cute family settings and equal opportunity agendas.  We have done a wonderful job at getting their broadcasters to present almost every form of ungodly living that we applaud with the excuse that they are just giving equal airtime to an equally viable lifestyle.  This post modernism philosophy has been such a successful campaign that whatever perverted lifestyle we can get one of the simpletons to live out will soon be ratified as an honorable way of life and will be protected with the same fervor as any other minority group on this planet.

The followers of the Enemy help us tremendously in these cases by labeling the perverted individuals with the sin they partake in and campaigning against them in their governmental halls and social structures.  Many of them are relentless in their efforts to produce their blessed “KingdomofHeaven” during their lifetime and in their respective countries through political means, even though the Enemy Himself has said that this will not happen.  This effort by these ignorant christians is one reason we have so easily changed the laws of the nations to support sin.  The masses are so tired of not conforming to the impossible standard of the few unforgiving zealots that they continue to fight for their “counter culture”.  What better way to make sin go away than to legally outlaw the very idea of sin?  And what member of our ranks could neglect to mention the benefits of that wonderful word “campaign”.  Fortunately for us the majority of the subjects in the Enemy’s camp spend more time trying to win their political agenda, whether it is pleasing to their master or not, than they do trying to win converts for their master.  If ever you believe your patient is in danger of being presented with the Enemy’s great lie just turn the conversation towards politics. This so-called “messenger of love” will soon assault your patient with various hardened opinions of which most are actually in opposition to the Enemy’s decrees for His people.  All of these devices have given us great strength in warding off any small advances that the Enemy might bring against us.

If all of these strategies fail to distract your man, take heart, for there is still much hope.  There is a wonderful phenomenon going on in their churches today which is of tremendous encouragement to our Father and our spiritual brethren.  This trend, which we have infiltrated into their worship, not only lies to their mind and emotions but also frustrates the Enemy greatly.  This manipulation is embodied in the actual words they sing out to the Enemy as well as in the misleading emotion they receive from the experience.  We have swayed even the most knowledgeable of their converts to sing songs that call for the Spirit of the Enemy to fall down upon them like He were some kind of mist, all the while ignoring His permanent residence within them.  They speak of our most ever-present foe as if He were hiding in ceilings and only strongly felt emotion could bring Him out.  If He were not such a pain in our side and a constant threat to our Master I would be appalled by the way they treat Him.  For example, I have personally tempted various leaders within their camp to act like they were wielding the dreadful Spirit like He was a baseball, throwing it at people so that they might seemingly receive Him or His power as they fall down.  Praise our Father that so many of the Enemy’s servants have no inkling about how to commune with the Spirit inside of them.  A great many of them don’t even believe that He is in existence let alone that He never leaves from within them.

I would like to think that we could somehow cause Him to forsake the patients but none of our many years of effort have yet produced that outcome on any of the patients that we have lost to the Enemy’s cause.  But our research is not complete in this area and I have hope that someday we will achieve this end.  None the less we have done a great job in keeping their imaginings about their spiritual experience in the forefront of their minds while keeping their true spiritual state as a lost notion in the back of their brain.  In short they believe, consciously or unconsciously, that self-induced emotions are the mirror of their spiritual well being and that the Spirit of the Enemy is a beckoned projectile.

So you see my dear Lustmoth, all is not lost.  We still have an overwhelmingly good chance of making this patient’s life a wonderful collage of pain, suffering, discomfort, and dissatisfaction.  We have so much on our side that it is impossible for the Enemy’s expectations of our war with Him to come to fruition.  We have drunk the life out of millions of His little broken puppets and we will drink the life out of millions more.  Hold on to the hope given to you by our feared Father and remember that each and every moment with the creatures is a battle for their flesh.  If you fight for their flesh with more vigor than they fight against it then you will reap the gluttonous joy of feasting on a defeated foe.  I look forward to hearing of your successful endeavors or else I will make your demise an endeavor of mine.

Your wise and continually hopeful mentor,

MANINFESTO

My Foolishly Dear Lustmoth,

I fear that you have disproved my expectations of your skills too quickly and too severely to ever have my wise counsel come your way again.  I should have taken your cousin’s word for it that you were a premature graduate of the basic school and in need of major technical correction.  Maybe after pondering my words during the long upcoming gauntlet of starvation and pain, which you shall surely receive because of this trespass, you will come back to the front as a knowledgeable and crafty tempter.  Hear me now as I make note of your folly.

After your patient’s run in with this vessel of disgusting light you should have done as I suggested and led the young man’s mind to think about the act of execution rather than the eternal outcome of it.  Instead, all that you were able to achieve was a coffee house run in with an anarchist group which only spouted nonsense about the illegitimacy of the governmental system all together.  This patient of yours is at least a cooperative human and at most a concerned citizen.  You shot too low, my little neophyte.  Now the boy, after several sleepless nights during which you brought nothing to distract him, has questioned the Enemy’s emissary on what happens to people when they die and has in response put his faith in the Son of our troublesome Foe.  You better pray to our Feared Master that the boy does not really mean, with all of his heart, what he has reportedly confessed with his mouth.  Did you feel the presence of the Enemy when he mouthed these blasphemous words?  Did you find yourself dizzy and overcome by some horrid Spirit?  If not then that was just a figment of the ignorant fool’s imagination, a feeble attempt at feeling better, and we are still in the clear.  If the second hypothesis is true of your patient then we can capitalize on it in two different ways.  We can either focus on revealing to the patient how unfulfilling religion is, making him an atheist or deist, or we can steer him towards one of our many congregations that are completely made up of our people.

The first proposition will spark, consciously or unconsciously, a bitter reaction in all future confrontations with anything that resembles true religion and improve our chances of pushing him towards any one of our many deceptive perspectives on life.  The later option will root the young patient in a group of our people who practice the shell of Christianity without touching on any of the real meat which the Enemy is pleased by. What is truly scrumptious is watching those poor entrees of ours continuing in the deception that they are participating in their particular denomination to please the Enemy, but who are in actuality only doing it for their pride and for us.

If your patient really meant what he said, then we will have to employ a completely different strategy.  Instead of having the opportunity to plump up a good morsel, for our present and future devouring, we now would have to protect ourselves from losing any more patients because of his conversion.  We would have to employ strategically defensive measures before we could begin a counter attack.  Discover a solid conclusion on this matter and report to me as quickly as your inept performance allows you to do so.

Your decreasingly loyal mentor

MANINFESTO

My Dear Lustmoth,

I am deeply concerned over your recent correspondence.  My last communication in no way should have been taken as a license to withdrawal from the patient.  I have forgotten that fresh recruits straight out of the Basic School sometimes mistake a momentary feeling of security for success.  My dear unseasoned disciple, there is no success until the squirming little human is safely in our master’s domain.  Your foolish mistake has allowed the boy to communicate with a scholarly member of the Enemy’s legion.  My last words to you were to keep your patient away from such men as these.  There are so few in this area but you somehow allowed the boy to enroll in the one class that had one of these detestable creatures as its instructor.  You must seek to guide his thoughts more carefully and use all available devices to block him from such decisions if he continues to ignore your thought insertions.

Well, all is done.  The patient, I presume from your letter, is now asking some deep questions about the nature of life and the after life.  What you saw as a harmless conversation about the execution of one of our more responsive human patients turned into a prospective nightmare.  Yes, there is joy for our Father and our brethren when one so corrupted is sent straight into our hands by those who have felt the physical and emotional work we have done through him.  It is nice to see people so far from the actual situation so hardened and burdened by such a masterpiece of destruction.  Not only did we consume the young patient but we in turn consumed many others through his violent reaction to our prodding.  If that was the end of the whole affair it would have been worth it but to then feed on all the delicious hatred, unforgiveness, bitterness, and pure unadulterated pain, is truly a filthy treat.  What’s even more delightful is that we have influential entertainers in this world that actually promote the furthering of pain and destruction in their own “artistic” way.  I must confess that I feel somewhat threatened for my job sometimes because of the creative deviousness of some of these “stars”.  But then again they are what they are because of the many laborious centuries of our master.  We are successfully turning execution into a spectator sport once again and we have influenced this present culture of theirs so much that hedonism and rebellion are being accepted as the new societal standard for moral living.  The annoying little vermin are becoming even more sadistic than some of our weaker brothers.  But none the less I have not forgotten my displeasure with you.

Despite all the aforementioned joy received from the topic of one man’s execution you allowed your patient to get caught in a debate over the afterlife with the Enemy’s proselyte before we had time to securely develop a lie in the patient’s mind on this issue.  Do not mistake ignorance for deception.  Even though the rodent seamed fooled, he actually had just never been squarely confronted with the controversy.  Our work of brain infiltration is a slow and tedious task at times and must be watched over with the composure of a seasoned tempter.  You must remember that a man’s strengths are usually his weaknesses.  For instance, your patient is an intellectual that ponders as much as he sees and therefore calculates the cost of things much easier then say a person who is inclined to act first and think later.  You should probably lure him with an attractive tidbit of knowledge.  Dangle some newly talked about philosophy in front of his curious ego and then slowly draw him along.  As he begins to become more and more comfortable with the idea, aided by the coercing of influential friends, he will begin to incorporate them into his own perspective on life.  Once a deceptive philosophy, such as hedonism, is ingrained into the young man’s mind you can then slowly introduce the various manipulations of what the Enemy created to be pleasurable for the simple creatures.  Though it is of great pleasure to watch the bags of flesh run after a buffet of perverted activities, it is far more important to lay the foundation of a long term deception before we proceed with temptations of the more physical nature.

Since that topic of the death penalty is already on your patient’s mind try to steer his thinking in the direction of activism against it or for it.  If we can keep his mind on some “great cause” rather than on his own mortality then we have furthered our endeavor to deceive the young fool.  Either way you take him on the issue is good for us, as long as you keep him from the pathetic lie, which the Enemy propagates, called love.  We are fairly safe on this point because the Enemy has not yet gotten his tentacles into your prey, meaning the child will not have much of an idea of what the enemy really means by this idea of love.  I expect better news in your next report.  Too many failures have caused many a feeble fallen angel to be consumed by the wiser ones.  Watch yourself and your patient carefully.

Your loyal mentor,

  MANINFESTO

When I was seeking my Diploma in Theology back in 2002 in Ft. Worth, TX, I entered a competition through HarperCollins to write a “Screwtape Letters” type of work of fiction. They were about to republish The Screwtape Letters and in addition they would publish the winning piece of work on their website during the time when all the fan-fair came out with the reprinting of the Lewis book. In honor of starting the process of discussing The Screwtape Letters with my class at Bryan College tomorrow, I thought I would present to you my entry: “Letters to Lustmoth.” I will present them one letter at a time in individual posts. I hope you enjoy them.

Letters to Lustmoth

By J. Truett Glen

My Dear Lustmoth,

I am exceedingly intrigued over the details of your young patient’s lot in life.  The fact that he has entered such a darkened educational institution and has become even more hardened away from the light during the last two years there is very encouraging.  That institution is firmly in our grasp and the fact that few of the educated members of the enemy’s camp want to teach or study there is helpful for our cause.  We have done a wonderful work in manipulating masses of the little vermin to view such strongholds of ignorance and lies with great esteem.  Oh, I do admit that we do have some educational institutions in our grasp that outwardly seem much more centered in our Enemy’s camp but in actuality are just spiritual graveyards.  They may have a thousand religious organizations running around on campus but very few, if any, actually do us any damage.  The detestable creatures are more concerned with impressing the opposite sex of their kind in a culturally acceptable way than they are with furthering the enemies cause or getting to know Him more.  Their so called “mission trips” are little more than excuses to travel with the objects of their affection into foreign countries to perhaps obtain a midnight kiss on some exotic shore.  Let me return again to the focus of this instruction.

The young man is not in one of these institutions and therefore must be treated in a different manner.  It sounds as if this patient of yours is of the critical thinking kind, so do not entertain the idea of introducing him to any of our more physically manipulated patients.  I have known many a young man and woman who have gone over to the enemy’s side after a brief stint in a very outwardly immoral lifestyle.  The act of pulling them into numerous physical bondages might work for some but it often times reveals to others a desire for some help from the enemy Himself in their pursuit to return to modesty.  This idea in itself, detestable as it is, is not extremely threatening to us unless they discover during this process of seeking that they really can’t do any good for themselves under their own strength.  As soon as they convert and lay themselves at His feet we might as well look temporarily elsewhere for fresh prey because of the irresistible trance He puts them under.  This is not to say that you abandon the patient altogether, it is just to say that you use your energy in a more effective way until the patient ceases to fervently adhere to the Enemy’s presence in his life.  But your patient, thankfully, is not in this condition and can therefore be attended to regularly.

We want to press our boy to reach the pinnacle of success in this post-modern world only to be achieved on the day he dies, lest he has time to find it unfulfilling in the end and repent.  We want to keep him occupied with social status and political correctness.  We want him consumed with all the little snares that we have set up in this barbaric world of his to keep the wretched creature from ever really taking notice of our greatly maligned Enemy.  Find this young man some ignorant philosophers to keep him busy on some non-threatening tangent and make sure he does not come into contact with any of the Enemy’s great warriors.

Your loyal mentor,

MANINFESTO

I recently read an article written by two ethicists out of Oxford concerning the moral validity of infanticide (the killing of babies after they have already been born) that disgusted me and caused great alarm within my soul. Being the academic minded man that I am, after my initial grief and anger I processed the content of the article and began to reason against what these men had said. I will not go into the specifics of their argument in this post, but I did want to discuss the reactions of many that have read and heard about this article and those who then judge the reactions of the disgusted masses.

If you do an internet search for this article or the names of the professors you will find well-researched and gracious ethical responses to what these gentlemen have proposed, but you will also find references to death threats, slanderous words, and other violent language that has been directed towards these two Oxford scholars. There are those in the academic and medical community that agree with these men and have agreed with them for some time now. This is not a “new” concept as scholars such as Peter Singer were writing books validating infanticide back in the 90’s and earlier. The “extreme” hateful sounding reactions have normally come from those who have not been worn down by the subject over the years of study and argument in academic environments that will not stand for violent responses to most subjects (except for possibly war and discrimination). However, the majority of humanity does not live in the “academic” environment, but instead live in a land of moral consistency and shared values. The lands obviously change over the years in what they approve of and value, but they work on the notion that they all share a common understanding of what is not acceptable, of what is not good. So when people from these lands (who are more connected to the academic land than ever before) hear of such notions as the acceptable killing of babies after they have already been born, well, they are shocked, disgusted, and angry.

However, no one wants to feel that they or their friends or “set” are deserving of hate speech, so they must quickly move to vilify those who are vilifying them. This is not a conscionably hard thing for many progressives in the academic and media sets to do because they have already placed such people in a category of incompetence concerning areas of science and “true” morality. I do not mean to demonize all progressives or academics but I must be honest in my assessment of some within those sub-cultures. I have talked with them over the years and many of them are my friends. So I feel I have observed them in their natural setting and I have heard their slanderous references concerning the “common” man. I have listened to them speak of “f___ing idiots” that don’t understand progress, toleration, and science. In turn, I must admit that I have heard conservatives speak of these “progressive” minded individuals in the same way. It is all ugly. However, there are times when I agree with initial angry reactions to people and ideas. Biblical images come to mind of the Israelite who had seen the “people of God” fall to the level of practicing human sacrifice and cannibalism and in response he rips his clothing and throws ashes on himself as he wails in the streets for his people. Humans grieve in many different ways but often our grief takes the form of disgust and anger. We don’t rip our clothes in the streets anymore here in America (and when we did it was to celebrate our favorite rock star), rather many allow hateful words to slip from their lips and show forth from their blogs. Others simply choose to hold even tighter to their community of agreement while they still can…while consistent morality and shared values can still be had.

I do not condone the ugly responses of those who express their grief in a way that Christ would not condone, but I do question my subdued academic response to many of these tragic ideas. There certainly are ideas that come forth from the mind of sinful man that deserve our disgust and wailing in the streets. Yes, there are some very confusing ethical dilemmas out there that deserve very patient debate on the part of everyone involved, but there are also lines and beliefs that should never be crossed because they protrude from the very fabric of what makes us humans. One of those beliefs is the value of all human life; in the womb or outside, functional or debilitated. Let us grieve in our hearts at the sight of truth suppressed and begin again the process of expressing that which is good, holy, and right.

http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full