Cultural Foundations

With Jared Longshore

Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, European Brain Snakes, Mere Orthodoxy

This is an update on what books I’m reading. They are not intended as extensive research of any sort. But the ideas I’m interacting with deserve heavy consideration because they so deeply affect our society. When I say deeply, I mean that it is likely you do not even know or think that you are affected by it. 

In the last post “The Authentic Self Must Die” I wrote about how the authentic self leads to infidelity and divorce. Who do we have to thank for the desire to be “authentic”, Jean Jaques Russeau. While I wrote about marriage, but it goes into many decisions that people make every day. 

Decisions like who they will associate with, what kind of jobs they will take (often to your own detriment), whether or not you’ll say sorry to someone, or forgive them. Many opt for permanent bitterness for seemingly no reason (Trump Derangement syndrome is one such thing) but the reason is straight up pride. “Authentic Self” feeds pride. 

But it’s worse than that. 

Aleister Crowley wrote something interesting, which is the ultimate end of Russeau, which is “Do what thou wilt”. This means that you should do whatever it is you desire. Perhaps it goes even farther with the philosophy or new age beliefs that claim the person speaking is dreaming everything around them. “I don’t know if you’re dreaming me, or if I’m dreaming you”. 

Anyway, the sexual revolution (as told by Carl R. Trueman) is brought on by the focus on the self. But satanism teaches that the self is the most important also. Satanism places the individual at the head of the table calling the shots – especially over and above God. 

God didn’t make me tall, boo on God, I’m better than that. God didn’t give me riches, God is dumb and doesn’t know that I need this. That guy looked at me funny, please dispose of him. It would greatly please me if you went on a date with me. How dare you not want to do whatever I want to do. 

My new favorite thing to quote, to show how strange this all is, “I didn’t consent to be born, therefore…” and then go on to say what you’re going to say. 

Whatever. 

Things I’ve come to grips with during our cultural foundations class. 

1. Covenant
   1. Everyone is responsible for responding to God’s invitation into his manifold work on the earth. (Manifold means… many different aspects). Refusal is sad and met with real consequences. While John 3:16 says that WHOEVER believes in God will be saved, John 3:17 says that whoever does not believe is condemned already. 
   2. But to come into salvation is actually to come into covenant with God. God promises eternal life, and we promise to give him our whole lives here and now. It’s a pretty great life, to be honest. And doubly so because if you are a believer it’s extended to your family. Pray for the salvation of all! 
2. Your consent is irrelevant.
   1. This gets into getting baptized because you decided to, even if you were previously baptized as a child. It places salvation in your own hands rather than God’s hands – which it’s in his hands. And maybe you didn’t need an extra dip, but I never pass up a good time of singing – gotta sing at baptisms, amiright?
   2. But it gets dicey when you talk about baptizing your kid. Trigger warning. The logic usually goes something like, “well, we don’t know if they’re going to believe or not, not yet anyway – we have high hopes, but we don’t know if they’re going to be saved or not. 
   3. Please don’t hurt me. 
   4. It occurred to me that this is the same logic that is used to defend baby murder. Not by all, but by many.
      1. “We don’t know if they’re going to be a human yet”, “we don’t know if they’re going to have a good home to live in”
         • “what kind of world are they being born into… I can’t do that to them!”
      2. “We don’t know if they’re going to be a believer yet”, “So, don’t baptize them…”, “Let’s let them decide” (whether they are a boy or a girl, or whether they will be a believer)
      3. The self is a scary thing when WE get to decide on what the structure of reality gets to look like.
3. Back to the covenant
   1. Covenant teaching says that the promise is not only for me, but for my children. This is a deep thing to consider. The promise is for you… and YOUR FAMILY. Your kids. (Genesis 17:7)
   2. This means that I can believe that they are going to be saved because God said so. It also means that they are going to be taught that God has welcomed them into the family. Which reminds of something:

Victory Outreach

*click*

That’s what happened when I start thinking about the ministry that I grew up in. They always said that the promise of salvation (ultimately freedom from drug abuse) was for YOU and YOUR FAMILY. 

This was meant to be a message of hope. Something that you can really hang your entire hope on. God promises that salvation was not just for you, but for your entire family. Is this outreach oriented ministry covenantal? Are they secretly presbyterian but never told any one? 

I think I might have grown in the faith in the right place. If you’re from there, you should consider contacting me, let’s talk about baptizing your kids. And I’m 100% serious. 

4. To focus on the self is satanic. I knew that already. But man, it really comes up against so many thoughts and ways I’ve lived as a Christian. In particular all the stuff about me deciding whether I’d be a Christian or not, or deciding whether I’ll bring my kids into the family of God because they hadn’t decided yet. It’s done – they are Christians already – they were born into the family.

Interested in saying more? Comments are open, or catch me on Facebook. Peace out – for now.