All tagged freedom
For 20 years I've been studying progressive ideology from a philosophical angle. Eric Hoffer wrote a book 70 years ago that peeled my eyeballs back about the psychology and sociology of mass movements. What ingredients fuel a mass movement? Why do mass movements become a holy cause? Why is there such credulity among those who join mass movements? I also ask more critical questions about the vaccine mandates.
Stemming from God's character—perfect love permeated with pure holiness—Christians celebrate justice. Pertinent for today, we have to ask how that compares with a Postmodern sense of justice. So for example, if society is undergoing a "new rising consciousness" how should Christians process justice? I also reflect on Joe Biden's recent vaccine mandate speech and strategize about how to dialogue with a Postmodernist.
Words are powerful. We shape both reality and ourselves with words. So it's interesting to me that Marxist shibboleths (insider religious code words) are more like word-clouds and less like specifically defined terms. Why is that? In this episode I work through several shibboleths and expose them. We need to understand some of what is going on in society. Oh, and I also describe what it is like to be the owner of a new puppy!
We are told this is neither a matter of individual racists wreaking havoc nor is it simply that there are towns or regions that are predominantly racist. No, the dominant narrative is that America is "systemically" racist. Why that resounding refrain? To sort this out I peer into the work of Robin DiAngelo, author of the best selling book, White Fragility. What can we take away from her? How is this all rather like a glacier going off a cliff?
Most coups are local and violent over-throws of rulers. Soft coups involve a gradual, incremental, willing handing over of power. Are we in the midst of a soft coup? Sure looks like it. So how'd we get here? What is the strategy that has brought us to this historic crux? Answer: a massive societal loss of nerve, a loss of nerve driven by a moral re-structuring. In this episode I relate all of this to my own golf game. Weird things happen when you lose your nerve!
Pulling down statues? Fairly easy. Totally erasing the past? Now that's a more difficult task. But that's precisely what we are witnessing across America. How can we discern what is going on? What "poker tells" are at hand that let us know the deeper agenda at work? And why does so much of what we are witnessing have a cult-like quality to it? What is a Christian response to the unrest?
Trinitarian reality is not some esoteric doctrine, it has implications for both public and private life. Herein I give some examples of how the character of God—an eternal unity in diversity—is the ethical foundation for our own lives, for society. I also take a few moments to talk about the meaning of the public presence of the Church and why that matters. Come think and laugh with me.
Creation echoes and mirrors God's own self. How is that so? I work through dynamics like finding meaning, reality versus thin copies, community, patterns, ecology, unity, diversity, and beauty. Building from the theological concept of panentheism I show what a mystery, a beautiful mystery, everything in life is. Nothing is eliminated by virtue of its group or species. So amazing!
Life is a matter of frequency, of attunement, of stimmung (in German). How we attune ourselves, how we tune our frequency, greatly determines the quality of our lives. What kinds of things have entered the American frequency that have cloyed both a biblical and an American understanding of freedom? What Beatles song do I sing to make my point? Come think and laugh with me.
I'm caught in an existential sandwich between numbness and irritation. What has led to this state of being? What truly frightens me about our response to COVID? I've coined a new word—slotch—to capture governmental over-reach, administrative gobbledy-gook, and managerial nonsense. And because we have all endured it, I even sing a song about slotch. Still more, what does both Animal Farm and the Bible teach us about human nature? Come laugh and think with me.
What are some common things that have led to vast societal fear about Coronavirus? What's the apparent tell-tale sign of infection? When is societal freedom more important than our safety? What's now wrong with the early predictive models? How has the media fostered our chaos? Do I believe God is causing this? And what are herd mentality and herd immunity? Come reason and laugh with me in a time of terror.
If you're like me, you get frustrated when God doesn't answer your prayers the way you want him to. Even when you're praying sincerely and regularly, nothing seems to be happening. Why is that? What kind of microcosmic and macrocosmic factors play into that? Is God indifferent? Is he unable? I also address the question of whether prayer is control. And along the way I discuss how I use the Lord's Prayer in my own prayer life. Come, laugh and think with me!
I've never met somebody who relished in uncertainty. Ambiguity is hard on us, sometimes it is hard on our faith. In this episode will I celebrate ambiguity? Nope. But I will point out some of the positive dimensions that the space, distance, and freedom which all come from ambiguity make possible in our lives. I also talk about the olfactory wonders of walking my dog, Bindi!
The human soul is not hard-wired, it gets shaped. Two authors I just read argue that our souls get shaped more by the western marketplace than by Christianity. How does that happen? What goes into that? Are they simply irritated with capitalism? Should we be? And then, what shapes your soul? Are you being intentional? Have you ever met beautiful souls? How can we go about shaping our souls?
We all live our lives based on a story. By which story are you living? God is a risky author-actor: he lets other subjects and beings have a role in his own very play. We can say “no,” we can somewhat alter the story. But if we're going to join God at recess, we'll be asked to play by the guidelines of his playground. Oh, and I also speak toward what all this means for me.
Amazingly, reason cannot stand on its own. An unbounded reason often turns into a bone-crushing monster. For example, in some cultures it is reasonable to euthanize the mentally handicapped, or treat women as less than fully human. So, reason needs faith. The problem is that our Post-Cartesian society has made us swallow the blue pill of blindness, of blind faith. Jesus Christ offers us the red pill of reality, reality filled with truth, meaning, and grace. Let me show you some ways that faith informs Christian reasoning.
Are Scientists only objective? Is religious faith unusual? Well, we are taught daily that science is based on pure reason. But in this episode, following Michael Polanyi as our guide, I will show that actually science involves great subjectivity. Moreover, the doing of science involves trust, that is faith, risk, and commitment; qualities that are normally relegated to the world of religious faith.
