Saturday, March 16, 2024

WHAT DRIVES THE ECONOMY AND WHY THE WEST IS FALTERING


 

In Truth and Transformation, Vishal Mangalwadi, an Indian economist, identified the central element for prosperity—morality. He explained why his India had long failed while the West had leaped forward. It was because of the West’s moral engine:

·       Swami Sivananda of the Divine Life Society summarized classic Hinduism in this way: “The world is neither good nor bad. The mind creates good and evil. Thinking makes it so. The evil is not in the world; it is in the mind.…If you become perfect [God] the world will appear good [perfect].”

Mangalwadi marveled at the irony:

·       For me the ironic fact is that while my culture teaches that each one of us is God, the Netherlands and England were built on the biblical idea that human beings are sinners and accountable to God. India’s religious philosophy taught that since the human soul was divine, it could not sin. In fact, our most rigorous religious philosophy teaches that everything is God. God is the only reality that exists, and therefore there is no ultimate distinction between good and evil, right and wrong.

Ironically, to regard oneself as a sinner in need of God’s grace and His moral standards became the antidote to corruption and the way forward. Consequently, none were above criticism. Instead, critical thought is necessary for growth and advancement.

Without God’s objective moral standards, moral relativism reigned in Mangalwadi’s India with disastrous effects:

·       You don’t grow fruits or vegetables, or keep chickens or rabbits, because they will be stolen. A mango from India sells for as much as three dollars in America. Growing mangoes or guavas alone could lift whole families out of poverty. But if hardworking peasants grew good mangoes and guavas, the higher castes would come and take them. If the peasants tried to protect their fruit, they would be beaten and their wives raped.

According to Mangalwadi, morality is merely constructed by those in power for their own pleasure. Consequently, “Morality is merely a function of cultural power.” Mangalwadi blames this on Hinduism:

·       They do so because our pantheism dismisses morality and our polytheism worships corrupt gods.

However, Mangalwadi claims that the West has succumbed to the same religion:

·       The West is becoming corrupt like us because it is developing a “new spirituality” without morality. This new spirituality is no different than our old spirituality.

Why had the West progressed? According to Mangalwadi, the West had been granted the beliefs necessary to progress:

·       Given our early start, India and China should have been eons ahead of the West in developing technology and economy. Why did we fall behind? The answer is that our cultures were shaped by worldviews that taught us that intellect was our problem and salvation depended on deliverance from intellect, not from sin.

Mangalwadi had once been initiated into Transcendental Meditation. When he asked what his mantra meant, he was told something quite revealing:

·       “The principle of Transcendental Meditation is not to know truth but to empty one’s mind of all rational thought—to “transcend” thinking. To think is to remain in ignorance, in bondage to rational thought. Meditation, he explained, is a means of escaping thinking by focusing attention on a sacred though meaningless sound like Om.”

It became apparent that this was the reason for the great suffering India had endured. According to Mangalwadi, England had been rescued by the mercy of God through the Bible:

·       Early eighteenth-century England was as corrupt as my country; it was transformed by a religious revival led by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. For that story, see chapter 7 of my book Missionary Conspiracy: Letters to a Postmodern Hindu (New Delhi, India: Nivedit Good Books, 1996).

However, as the West has rejected its Christian roots, it has also rejected the prosperity that had once made it the envy of the world.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

AN UNBRIDGEABLE CHASM

 

     

 

We are the Tower of Babel, torn apart as our common moral language has disintegrated. For a recent of example:

·       Colorado Democrats have recently struck down House Bill 1092, a bill that would have instituted minimum sentencing for offenders convicted of selling or buying children for the purposes of exploitation.  The bill was heard in the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, which is also known as the "kill committee." On Thursday, the panel lived up to its nickname, killing the bill on an 8-3 party-line vote.  The eight Democrats who voted to stop HB 1092 were…

What possible reason could the Democrats have had for voting against such a needful bill to protect children?

·       Colorado Democrats reportedly argued that they oppose the harsher minimum sentences in part because offenders might "also be victims," a narrative which has been spreading among leftist activists often in relation to LGBT issues and trans rights issues.  The purpose?  They assert that pedophilia is a form of sexual orientation, and once something is labeled an orientation it suddenly becomes a protected group status.

·       Not long ago Democrats denied any of these activities were real and accused conservatives of "conspiracy theory."  Now that they have been thoroughly exposed, the leftist response is to defend the sexualization of children rather than admit they are wrong. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/colorado-democrats-more-offended-pictures-wood-chippers-child-sex-trafficking

The Democratic party has become the party of free sex, any sex, even when it is clearly destroying children and even poisoning the lives of the perpetrators and those who support them. Is their stance scientifically justified?

·       In 1934, an Oxford and Cambridge academic, J.D. Unwin, M.C., Ph.D., published the results of an exhaustive study of 86 different societies over five thousand years, concerning monogamy, free sexual expression and rampant promiscuity, and their impact upon society, entitled Sex and Culture.

·       Unwin describes himself as a rationalist, confiding that science exclusively conveys the ultimate tool for factual inquiry. With no religious convictions to convey, Unwin offered evidence without judgment in his six-hundred-plus page study, saying:” I offer no opinion about rightness or wrongness” [of sexual choices.]

Unwin investigated 86 different societies and discovered that civilizations where men and women practice abstinence until marriage and marital faithfulness thrive, and promiscuous cultures with sexual divergence decline:

·       In human records, there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continence.

·       Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom; the evidence is that it cannot do both. https://byfaith.org/2023/05/09/homosexuality-promiscuity-and-the-collapse-of-society-follow-the-science/

Eventually, the building of the Tower was abandoned and the peoples disbursed.

 

 

Friday, February 23, 2024

LEARNING UNWORTHINESS

 

We are burdened with many weights—guilt, shame, worries, sins, regrets, and psychological needs to prove ourselves worthy and good. However, the Lord promises us freedom from a highly unlikely source—through believing the truth:

·       John 8:31–32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

However, the truth sometimes comes in unlikely and undesirable forms. Instead of trying to believe that we are worthy of God so that we can feel good about ourselves, Jesus instructed us to regard ourselves as unworthy and undeserving of anything good from Him:

·        Luke 17:10 “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

The Bible is filled with such admonitions:

·       Galatians 6:3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

James calls us a mere “mist” which disappears as the sun appears. As painful as it might be to regard ourselves as “something” insignificant, unworthiness is the path to something far more valuable. Paul had explained how he had to die to self-trust in his worthiness and superiority. If anyone had reasons to boast and exalt themselves, Paul had more. However, he learned to not trust in his performance but in Christ alone:

·       Philippians 3:7–9 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

Although I had far less to trust in than Paul had, as a 15 year-old I would look in the mirror, flex my muscles, and give myself many positive affirmations: “I am wonderful and all the girls secretly love me.” However, my experience never supported my self-deceptions. Instead, it seemed that the girls preferred the athletes, the class-clowns, and even the bad boys.

My positive affirmations became an addiction, and I required an increasingly greater and grandiose fix. However, these delusions not only further alienated me from other others but also from myself. Who was I? I no longer could say, but self-righteousness, self-aggrandizement, and narcissism run our world. Jesus told a parable illustrating this:

·       Luke 18:9–14 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The effects of self-righteousness (narcissism) are costly. This practice is not simply a matter of self-exaltation but also of denigrating others. It’s always a matter of needing to prove that we are better than others and requires massive doses of self-delusion resulting in alienation. In the process, the Pharisee also became alienated from God, having chosen the darkness of self-deception over the truths of God.

However, the hated and unworthy tax collector confessed the truth about himself—his only hope was in the mercy of God, and his confession brought God’s blessings. In the following account we see how gratefulness and courage result from the knowledge of our unworthiness.

Knowing that she had been forgiven, a sinful woman boldly entered a fancy Pharisees’ home where she didn’t belong. She fell down at Jesus’ feet, shedding tears of gratefulness over them, and anointed them with costly oil. The Pharisee, who had invited Jesus to his exquisite luncheon, was thinking, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

The Pharisee considered himself worthy and the woman unworthy. However, Jesus explained how she had showed Him great love while the Pharisee failed to show Him any:

·       Luke 7:46–47 (NLT) “You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, [in this way] she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”

The point isn’t that we should become great sinners so that we would be forgiven and become more loving. Instead, each of us has to realize that we are unworthy of God and desperately need His mercy.

Training In Unworthiness

The addiction to the deception of self-righteousness is perhaps the most destructive addiction. It is invisible. Therefore, no one says, I need to become less narcissistic. Nor does any psychologist advertise to cure self-righteousness. Instead, they too tend to feed it with positive affirmations. This is because no one wants to see what a wretch they have become. Instead, we’d prefer to think that we are always on the right/good side while others must change (Proverbs 16:2) . Therefore, our Lord must intervene to humble us. This can be so painful that many prefer suicide to humiliation. Here’s how it works:

 1.     Suffering

2.     Anger at God

3.  God Provides

4.    Humbled to See Our Unworthiness

5.    Reject Self-Trust in Favor of Trusting God According to His Word

Moses explained to the Israelites God’s strategy to humble them:

 ·       Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

He taught Israel to depend upon Him. He would feed their hunger with manna, which they must collect and eat exactly according to His directions. If they collected more than they needed, magots would come and create a stinking mess. Consequently, they learned that they would have to follow God’s every instruction rather than their own understanding or fears. He lovingly disciplined His children so that they would learn to trust in Him instead of their own reasoning and desires:

King David admitted that he needed the Lord’s chastening:

·       Psalm 119:67, 71–72 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word…It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

I too need to be afflicted to learn to trust in God rather than in myself. Years ago, I had been asked to preach at a church. Halfway through, I utterly forgot what I was going to say next and tried to cover it up by rambling on. The humiliation was so intense that I will never forget it. However, this lesson taught me to remember to pray before I act.

Our Savior purposely created us in a way to show us that we are unworthy and dependent upon Him:

·       2 Corinthians 4:7-11 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.  

Our hardships are designed to expose our unworthiness as melting gold ore brings its impurities to the surface. The gold is then refined as the impurities are removed. Nor can we look down on others, as the Jews, even Jesus’ disciples, had been prone to do regarding the Gentiles:

·       Matthew 15:21–28 [With His disciples] Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David [Messiah]; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Jesus was teaching His Apostles a valuable object-lesson using the Gentile woman. First, He wouldn’t answer her to embolden His Apostles to demand that Jesus send the Gentile away. Jesus then referred to the Gentiles as “dogs.” The Apostles must have rejoiced to hear this Word, as it was what they had always believed! However, the woman responded with such wisdom of humility that Jesus proclaimed “great is your faith”—something that He had never said to His own Apostles. Humiliation to the max! (Also see Matthew 8:8-10)

Knowing it’s all about Jesus

Once we are willing to embrace our unworthiness, Jesus become our worthiness:

·       1 Corinthians 1:30–31 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

We then begin to understand that Jesus is all we need and delight that He is our freedom and life:

·       Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Many will scorn such words. However, for me, these truths have become my absolute delight.