Yesterday I said to an acquaintance that the climate change conference is surely pointless (I was being diplomatic) since Russia, India and China weren't even going to be there. He, triple pecked, of course, looked at me with real hatred as someone deviating from the party line so naturally I had to ask him why he thought excess deaths in England and Wales are currently higher than they were you know when. See here. The article hedges its bets but the comments seem to have a good idea. That tipped him over the edge and he literally snarled at me saying he listened to experts not gossip and hearsay. Follow the science.
People are certainly doubling down in their wrong choices now. It seems that something inside them of which they aren't consciously aware is telling them that the only way they can prove to themselves they are right is to entrench themselves even more deeply in their wrongness. Darkness hates light and always wishes to depict it as the real darkness to justify itself.
This implies that on some level every sinner knows he is a sinner. And they are sinners because the litmus tests (® Bruce Charlton) are actually bringing out the spiritual sickness within souls. Bad people are making bad intellectual choices. That is not to say that those making the right choices are good but they are at least facing the right direction and not bad. I know this sounds very black and white and that is not a popular way to think about people in the modern world. It does appear though that it is how things are increasingly becoming. Anything that was grey must now become either black or white. With every day that goes by the division between sheep and goats is becoming more marked.
I've repeatedly seen these reactions over numerous things in my life. Getting called a Kook is particularly fun.
ReplyDeleteMy take away from such experiences is that God is revealing something to us, which I assume is that it serves God's higher to separate the wheat from the chaff / sheep from the goats.
And although it sometimes comes as a splash of cold water on the face ... you've been privileged to see something of someone else's soul or inner life, if for a split instant.
That's what it seems like in these situations. For a moment, the mask slips.
ReplyDeleteCharlton's litmus tests are interesting, but Galatians 5 gives us a much better test of whether we are truly living the spiritual life, or just deluding ourselves -
ReplyDelete"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control".
When I want to see if I am on the right path, and advancing in the spiritual life, I try and ask myself if I am increasing in these qualities - am I more gentle, am I getting kinder, am I more patient and forbearing with people, am I growing in joyousness and peace, do I love people more?
Unfortunately, all too often I am failing in all of these - but I find it is a wonderful metric for assessing where I stand spiritually, and for correcting course.
If after adopting some position, idea, or stance, I spend the week angry and gloomy, impatient of peoples errors and sins, lacking in gentleness towards them, less at peace - something has gone wrong, I have strayed from the path and missed the mark once again.
It is an infallible guide.
Christianity is the Way - it is easy to lose it - and we will always be falling away from it - but easy to find it again.
Unknown, your quote is true but it is incomplete. And, worse, it has been corrupted by those who want to appear spiritual.
ReplyDeleteIt is incomplete because it focuses only on the love side of spirituality and misses out the wisdom and discernment side, the harmless as doves side rather than the wisdom of serpents side. By itself it cannot fight evil and the fight against evil is critical. It is the cry of the pacifist who would rather see evil triumph than fight. You see a man beating a child or raping a woman. What do you do? Love, peace and gentleness won't help there. As a background, of course, but something else is required to deal with the situation in a godly way.
And then the qualities you mention " love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" can be used against spirituality if they are counterfeited, as they are, or used as an excuse to avoid responsibility which they also are. Obviously, these are qualities that we should acquire and display but they are not the only qualities and should not be seen as such or we will be s steamrollered by evil and allow the world to be similarly crushed.
@William - It's a bewildering situation, for sure!
ReplyDeleteAt one level, it seems so easy to acknowledge sin and repent - at another level it is apparently the most difficult thing in the world!
The best description of this, that I know of, is CS Lewis's short story: The Great Divorce.
https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20140726
It made me realize how easy it is to cling stubbornly to even an apparently tiny and trivial 'lifestyle' sin - and thereby deliberately prefer hell; even when Heaven is literally staring you in the face, and all around; and only repentance stands between you and it!
Perhaps it boils down to pride which is why that is traditionally regarded as the greatest sin.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'd say you are looking at these things primarily in their character as external actions, susceptible to social shaking and inappropriate compliance and the like.
ReplyDeleteThere is that aspect to it, but these are primarily mental states - they are "fruits" of following the Spirit.
If you don't feel increasing joy and inner peace, but continue to feel angst and turmoil - it may be time to question your spiritual framework.
If you don't feel increasing love, patience, and gentleness towards people - but continue to feel anger, hate, and harshness towards people - it may be time to question your spiritual framework.
Too often we forget today that the life of the Spirit is meant to be joyous - a foretaste of the Kingdom if Heaven.
The Gospels after all are the good news - they spell spiritual liberation amidst the horrors of this world, and a faith and hope on the world to come.
The way of sadness angst and gloom is the way of those not liberated in spirit.
At the end of the ancient world, everyone was gloomy and weary - Christianity swept across it like a wildfire because it offfered joy and hope even amid the horror of this world.
Today, any religious sensibility that is not "good news" has no hope of making any impact, because joy is the mark of liberation.
Unknown, I appreciate your comments but could you cut them down a bit so they are more succinct? Also, I'm not sure that they always relate to the post which I would prefer they did
ReplyDeleteNobody says you fight evil with its own weapons but you still have to fight it, through word and example and maybe sometimes even with force as Jesus demonstrated when he overturned the moneylenders' tables.. After all, the will is one of the primary divine attributes and it is legitimate to exercise it when that is done in the light of God's will. The spiritual man is not just a contemplative and that could actually be seen as a stage on the path to be superseded when its fruits have been acquired by a more positive interaction with creation. T
I see your Desert Fathers and raise you a St Michael!
Certainly, William. I do indeed have a way of expatiating at greater length, and I do have a rather broad interpretation of relevance as my mind sees distant connections that aren't always evident :)
ReplyDeleteI will try and limit both tendencies.
I agree with you that word, example, and force are all part of opposing evil and manifesting good - in the proper manner
As for this division of humanity you mention in your post, I'd agree it's real on some level but perhaps I don't see it so starkly.
Cheers
Forgive me if this comment inserts strife, but I have no intention of that.
ReplyDeleteThe advancement of this evil we attempt to describe has reached the point of self-annihilation, and, me being honest and finding it hysterical, that this "sum total of evil" has failed to produce children, progeny. Never has there been tyranny that produced anything but its own end.