The Wickedness of Self-Esteem

 

For my entire upbringing, and up until very recently, there has been a massive push to encourage building into people’s self-esteem and self-image. It is everywhere. Advertising is driven towards provoking it, education is geared towards fostering it, church teaching has leaned into it, and to question it is not quite anathema, but puts you on the outer with many people “right”[1] thinking people.

But pushing self-esteem continually is incredibly dangerous. It is entirely possible, in fact in truth actually quite common, for someone to have a very “healthy” image of themselves and feel no need to make any changes because they are content in who they are. This is one of the downsides of self-esteem obsession, people can be caused to esteem themselves so highly they become a stumbling block to their own ability to trust in Jesus for salvation, or grow in the faith. Something we all need to have happen from time to time is that our self-image is rocked and we are forced to re-calibrate it in light of what is actually good and true.

Of course, this can go too far in the opposite direction. Many people have been caused by all sorts of different things in their lives to hate themselves. But the solution to this is not selflove, it is to look beyond one’s self to something greater, better and more sure; to look to God. To know that you are loved by God is not a reason to love yourself more, it is a reason not to worry about how you feel about yourself, but to be more and more concerned with conforming yourself to his image,

“1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:1-3).

In fact the cure to excessive self-esteem or self-loathing is the same thing, look outside yourself to something greater, and especially to God. This has been a foundational part of Christianity from its beginning, and before so in the times of national Israel. Find your joy outside yourself in God and it will be more secure, like David did. 

But much of the church has failed to point people in this direction and in many ways has helped contribute to the self-esteem plague we have in society today. So it is good that some people are addressing this,

“A November 23, 1995, article by a professor/researcher in  Oregon’s The Oregonian newspaper was titled, “Note to California: Drop Self-esteem, Self-control is most important. …” (California, with its Self-Esteem Task Force, like the leading Christian psychologists who supported it, has unsuccessfully spent years and much money trying to prove that self-esteem or lack of it is the key to human behavior, especially of youth.) Based upon years of research, the article’s author declared, “If we could cross out self-esteem and put in self-control, kids would be better off and society in general would be much better off.”

That is precisely what the Bible has always said. Yet psychology’s fallacious and harmful theory—that the major problems in families, schools, and in society are caused by low self-esteem—is the very bread and butter of the ministry of James Dobson and many other Christian psychologists. The same is true for multitudes of pastors who have been feeding it to their flocks for years, having been deceived by the authoritative declarations of a host of Christian psychologists.

Paul failed so miserably in the self-esteem department that he should have suffered from lifelong depression and been of no use at all to God. He called himself the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), considered himself “less than the least of all saints” (Ephesians 3:8), unworthy to be an apostle (1 Corinthians 15:9), and rejoiced in his weakness. Yet he claimed to be able to do “all things through Christ” (Philippians 4:13), and through Christ to be always victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57; 2 Corinthians 2:14; Philippians 1:20, etc.). Christ told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in [your] weakness.” Paul’s response? “Most gladly therefore … that the power of Christ may rest upon me. … I take pleasure in …persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). What a well-deserved slap in the face to psychology, Christian and secular!

In contrast to Paul’s joy and victory through Christ alone, many of today’s Christians put their trust in Christ plus Christian psychology, the latter presumably able to make up for the failings of the indwelling Christ and Holy Spirit. Its false theories and therapies offer new comfort to the abused, confused, and depressed, making it the fastest growing and most monetarily profitable movement the church has ever seen. Incredibly, it is now generally accepted among evangelicals that God’s counsel in the Bible is deficient and needs to be supplemented with psychology. This lie has probably done more to destroy Christians’ faith in God’s Word than anything else of Satan’s devising. Psychology is surely Satan’s master stroke of genius!”[2]

What people would say is today’s self-esteem crisis is much more likely driven by the obsessive quest for self-esteem, rather than any lack of pushing people in that direction. The more anyone is directed to look at themselves as the be all and end all of their joy, the more they are going to find that they disappoint themselves. We human beings are fallen and broken people, and not only do we fall short of God’s standards we fall short of our own. We let ourselves down all the time, we simply excuse ourselves more often than not.

It is much better to point people to self-control, rather than self-esteem, because self-mastery can help you have both a healthier view of yourself and a humbler view of yourself. Of course, this road can too lead to pride, but it is a much healthier basis for a high esteem, than simply being told by everyone else that you should think good about yourself. How can you do this, if you have nothing objective to base it on?

Of course, you cannot stop here. To have a truly healthy esteem of yourself, you need to learn to lean on God, trust in Jesus, and give him the glory for who you are. This is the key to not falling into the trap of pride. This is a delicate balance to walk, but an important one. It is important to master yourself, to work hard, to achieve things, to build solid relationships with other people in order to have a healthy view of yourself. But to do so apart from God just might put you on a comfortable path to hell. There is no doubt that many of the pharisees who opposed Jesus likely had very high self-esteem, especially this guy,

“9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 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. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 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!’ 14 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” (Luke 18;9-14).

A truly healthy esteem of yourself takes into account just how much you cannot and do not compare to God, or match up to his standards. No matter who you are, or what you have achieved. Knowing this is key to understanding how to avoid the twin dangers of obvious pride (high self-esteem) or hidden pride (self-loathing). You are not all that. But if you trust in Jesus you don’t have to be, because he is and he did it for you. How is that not a reason to live in joy?

List of References

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[1] I use it here in the sense of orthodox, or accepted, not right-wing.

[2] Hunt, Dave; McMahon, T. A.. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers (pp. 226-227). The Berean Call. Kindle Edition.

Equality Crushes Brilliance

 

Nicholas Berdyaev takes our arguments against equality, enhances them and gives them a strong philosophical foundation on which to tear down all pretentions that egalitarianism is good for society. This excerpt is from his work The Philosophy of Inequality,[1] where he is outlining the bankruptcy of the worldview of the Marxists who overthrew the Russian society, along with all other Revolutionaries,

"But ye have no memory of the good of the past, about the imperishable truth and beauty in it, ye lack memory of the creative and resusciative.

Was Robespierre a new soul, a new man? No, he was to the depths of his being the old man, a man of the old regime, full of the old violent instincts. The French Revolution was made by people of the old soul, and they carried over into it all the old sins and passions. The new soul was born later, after the deep spiritual reaction against the revolution, when Chateaubriand wrote his "Rene" and "The Genius of Christianity". Then began a new era, inwardly distinct from the two preceeding centuries. The new man was born in the Catholic and romantic reaction. This is vouched for in the most positively credible of histories. In vain do you, the makers of the revolution, in the grip of its demons, in vain do ye think, that ye -- are creative people and that your deeds -- are creative deeds. In vain ye do think, that epochs of revolution -- are creative epochs within the life of mankind. Ye are people, completely bereft of creative spirit, cut off from it, hating and destroying creativity. Because indeed creativity -is something aristocratic, it is a deed of the finest, it does not tolerate the grip of the worst, the rule of the mob, whom ye serve. Is there creative a spirit in Robespierre or in Lenin? Have they not exterminated every creative impulse? Creativity does not endure equality, it demands inequality, an uplift, it does not permit of glancing about at neighbours, so as not to outpace them. The spirit of revolution, the spirit of the people of the revolution hates and eradicates genius and the sacred, it is in the grip of black envy towards the great and towards the sublime, it is intolerant of qualities and always thirsts to drown them in the quantitative. Never within an epoch of revolution did there blossom forth spiritual creativity, nor happen a religious and cultural rebirth, nor happen the flourishing of “science and the arts”.

“Creativity does not endure equality, it demands inequality, an uplift, it does not permit of glancing about at neighbours, so as not to outpace them.” He Berdyaev puts a spotlight on the issue of equality. Its core problem is that it is simply covetousness or envy granted license to swing about society and seek after what it wants. Equality is the drive for people to not allow anyone to have more than they have, to look in suspicion at those that do, and to find a way to correct things so that people are not allowed to rise above others.

Whereas creativity requires nobility, or as Berdyaev puts it, “creativity is something aristocratic”. Creativity does not take thought for how others might not be able to compare to it, it is something people do because they want to create something unique, something different, something that stands out. This makes socialism, and particularly the Bolshevik form of socialism, the enemy of creativity. This is why our modern cities and suburbs are so bland, this is why modern movies suck, this is why video games are dropping in quality, and why so many other parts of our society are becoming bland. Socialism, Marxism, Communism, really oppressive Satanism is a form of evil that does not want individual brilliance to excel. It drives people to tear down and ruins their ability to create something in its place.

Berdyaev goes on to argue that this is the driving evil behind all revolutions, this jealous spirit that wants to take and to crush, and stops people from being creative. It is necessary for the revolutionary spirit to first die so that then the Aristocratic spirit can rise up and bring something new in its place.

This is a compelling book, I am only a little into it and already Berdyaev lends a strong philosophical basis to the many strong arguments against equality that we have all looked at already. Equality is a force for evil, a force to be opposed, and Berdyaev appears to be a solid philosophical ally in this good fight.

List of References  

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[1] Nicholas Berdyaev, 1923, The Philosophy of Inequality, Published by Friar Stephen Janos, pp. 8-9.

Physicians Who Can’t Heal Themselves

 

“Psychologists and psychiatrists have the highest percentage of any profession under the care of psychiatrists, committing suicide, divorcing, and on prescription drugs. Consulting them is like asking directions of someone who is himself hopelessly lost.“

David Hunt, Psychology and the Church

I shared this with some people recently, and while this might be pretty well known to those who have examined the psychological profession closely in the past, many ordinary people who might be tempted to look to a psychologist for help may not be aware of this. Well, now you know, now you know that those who purport to be the experts at helping people deal with emotional issues, are often those most in need of help,

-        “Psychologists are at greater risk of dying by suicide, and the rates may be increasing.

-        Factors including the burden of managing care for vulnerable individuals contribute to psychologist suicide.”[1]...

...The Link Between Psychologists and Suicide

A significant body of research shows that health professionals in general are at an elevated risk of death by suicide, but research on the risk of suicide in psychologists specifically is limited and mixed. However, most research does indicate that suicide is a problem among psychologists. Some past findings include:

- Older data suggest that more than 1 in 4 psychologists have felt suicidal: A 1994 sample of 800 psychologists found that most had received therapy themselves. Of the psychologists who had received therapy, 61 percent reported a history of clinical depression, 29 percent reported a history of suicidal ideation, and 4 percent reported a suicide attempt.

- Rates may be increasing over time: Compared to the 1994 study, a 2002 sample of 1000 psychologists found that 62 percent of respondents were depressed, and 42 percent of that depressed population experienced suicidal ideas or behaviour.

- Professional stressors often contribute to psychologists feeling suicidal: A 2009 survey found that 40 to 60 percent of responding psychologists reported disruption in their professional functioning because of burnout, anxiety, or depression, and 18 percent reported suicidal ideation while dealing with personal and professional stressors or challenges.

- Psychologists may have the fourth highest rate of suicide among health professions: In a sample of 4,733 suicides across various health professions from 2003-2018 psychologists had the fourth highest rate of suicide.”[2]

Human mental health was never meant to be attended to by a pseudo-scientific profession. Human beings are comprised of body, mind and soul, and all three of these things need to be in good health for us to be in optimal physical or mental health. Psychology, literally ‘soul science, is a profession that purports to be able to heal the body and the mind, often without even recognizing the reality of the soul, and the importance of spiritual factors in the mental health of any given person.

As I said in a sermon recently, we Christians often forget just what an advantage we have over many people in this world, because we know that our sins are forgiven. Just the burden that this takes off our minds is incredible. Many people in our world live in expectation of some kind of judgment or reckoning, and this is not just true of the religious. Even our modern secular world is fixated on a hypothesized human driven climate catastrophe that is meant to strike in some not to distant future and bring about a reckoning on all humankind for the way we have treated this planet. Imagine living with this sense of dread, and having no spiritual relief or recognition that there is a way for your sins to be forgiven? This is how much of the world lives, this is how many psychologists live. No wonder so many people are depressed. 

Of course, there is much more that goes into a good state of mental and spiritual health, like being accepted into a loving family and wider fellowship, eating well, looking after our bodies, getting out into nature, working hard, but in a balanced way, taking rest, getting enough sleep, and much more. But the truth is that the Bible gives good advice about all of this and much more. Psychology can speak to many of these material needs for human beings, but it offers nothing for the soul and for spiritual matters. And this is an area where both psychologists and their patients are in desperate need for counsel.

Psychology is a sick profession, in large part because its own therapists themselves are deeply spiritually ill and in need of healing, so they do not really have much to offer people. Christianity was designed to fill this gap. I hope the church remembers this.

 

List of References

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[1] Simon Sherry, 2024, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psymon-says/202302/why-are-psychologists-at-greater-risk-of-suicide

[2] Ibid. 

Running Out Of Power

 

Car companies are beginning to give up on the all-electric future,

“ANOTHER best-selling carmaker has abandoned its plans to only sell EVs by 2030 - with three reasons behind the shock U-turn.

The firm joins Ford as the latest industry giant to back off its ambitious Net Zero targets despite tightening legislation in the UK.

Bosses have blamed the decision on a trio of factors squeezing their margins.

Namely, slower than anticipated demand for EVs combined with the withdrawal of incentives to buy one and the lingering uncertainty over whether Europe will enforce hefty tariffs on electric cars made in China.

Several big-name manufacturers have already invested in Chinese factories and could see profits slashed by up to 25% per unit if the move goes through…

…The announcement comes just a few months after Ford, one of the largest car brands in the world, broke the industry trend by scaling back its zero-emission ambitions.

Marin Gjaja, chief operating officer of the firm's EV division, told Autocar at the time: "I don't think we can go all in on anything until our customers decide they're all in, and that's progressing at different rates around the world.

"I think customers have voted, and they told us [2030] was too ambitious, is what I would say - and I think everyone in the industry has found that out the hard way.

"I would also say reality has a way of making you adjust your plans."[1]

The idea of not having to rely on fossil fuels, many of which force you to rely on energy from other countries who are potential enemies, is an attractive one. If it were possible to park your car outside and let the sun charge it, even on a cloudy day, the would be awesome. But to paraphrase the Proverbs, Many are the plans of a man’s heart, but this is God’s world and we don't always get what we want. Mankind has his plans, but those plans will often come into conflict with reality.

If you have a high disposable income, and float in certain social circles, then the idea of taking advantage of government rebates to drive around in what is effectively the vehicle version of a SJW badge, may sound like a great idea. And there is no doubt that government rebates have driven the uptake of these vehicles, especially for company fleets, the tax breaks are incredibly generous. But if you want a car that you can fill up in under 5 minutes, and has a reliable range of over 500kms, then you need a combustion engine car. Perhaps there are some people who want to sit at a charging station for thirty minutes (or much more) while you put enough charge in the vehicle to get home, but most people want to spend much less time at a refueling station of any kind.

Also consider this, electric cars are effectively like laptops or mobile phones, they are large lithium based throw away products that are worth virtually nothing once their life is over. A conventional car can last for decades if serviced and looked after well, even with high kilometers. They are just a far more viable and useful technology, and we have only just scratched the surface of why this is the case. 

It makes complete sense why people are rejecting the electric revolution, and it is good to see car companies are paying attention. They will face stiff opposition from regulators, especially in the European Union, but as the article says, “reality has a way of making you adjust your plans.”

List of References

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[1] https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/30274733/volvo-abandons-plans-evs-2030-reasons/

Reason 59,642 Why Mass Immigration Sucks

 

There are many reasons why mass immigration sucks. Your nation loses its ethnic and cultural identity, suddenly everyone is calling themselves by your national identity, while also at the same time seeking to change your country to more closely reflect their own. There are the social and cultural issues with immigration that bring increasing division. The Putnam study on immigration from the early 2000’s proved conclusively that large amounts of immigration lower social cohesion, increase criminality, and fracture society. There are the economic problems associated with immigration, companies can lobby governments to bring in skilled and unskilled workers to compete with the local workforce, which suppresses wages, and also can lower the quality of work being done in that sector, and the mass migration of people splits families into more and more splintered groups, spread across nations and even globally. The case against mass immigration is a strong case. Here is another reason why it sucks.

(Note: before I go further, I don’t distinguish between legal or illegal immigration, for one they have the same effects on nations, secondly, if you immigrate illegally to Australia, you will have a bus load of dyscivilisational lawyers who will clog up the courts for years fighting for your “right” to stay somewhere you had no right to come in the first place. So it is a foolish distinction).

Why would governments have to work out ways to solve working conditions for local employees, when if there is a shortage in any particular sector they can simply import more people to fulfil those roles. Mark my words, this will be the largest part of the solution to the teacher shortage Australia is currently facing,

“Ater 25 years of teaching across several Perth and country schools, both public and private, the workload and pressure became too much for Hayley Gale in the middle of last year.

That was when she quit teaching

She had gone to the doctor because she was experiencing "heart palpitations" and "breathing issues".

"I had actually started to get physical symptoms of stress," she said.

"I did all of these tests and it was nothing, and then I sort of worked out when I was getting those heart palpitations, it was related to stress."

Mrs Gale said these physical symptoms of stress were "the trigger" for her to walk away.

"It's not a school, it is every sector and the pay's not the issue 'cause there are other times when I was getting paid more [and I was more burnt out] — it's the work-life balance, it's having basically no life."

She is now working as a donor coordinator at a fertility clinic in Perth's western suburbs.

She was told about the job by a friend — also an ex-teacher.

"I thought, 'I can't leave my students in the middle of the year,' but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't [take the job] because I knew, physically, I just could not keep doing it," she said.

Mrs Gale is not alone. Education researcher Saul Karnovsky has warned burnout is driving teachers out of the profession in droves, exacerbating staff shortages around the country.

The federal Department of Education has predicted that by 2025 demand for secondary teachers in particular will exceed the supply of new graduate teachers by about 4,100.

It has cited an aging workforce and a dwindling number of new teachers as major factors in the shortage.

However Dr Karnovsky and his counterparts across the country believe the reality of the shortage will be far worse.”[1]

There is a growing teacher shortage out there. The article fails to mention it was exacerbated by the countless numbers  of teachers in the workforce who left when the covid mandates were in force, as per usual for our terrible media. But the work life balance for teachers has been getting worse for teachers for years now.

We are talking here about why immigration sucks, and the difficulties teachers now face with the growing diversity in the classrooms adds another weight on top of their work load already. When I was in school the classroom was basically uniformly made up of British or Irish descended Aussies with a similar cultural background. There may have been a few people from diverse origins, now this diversity has increased exponentially.

But this is not all. Developmental issues are increasing. The tolerance for nonsense gender identities has to be thrown into the mix. And much more. The obvious solution to all of this would be for governments to slow down on changing our society, and observe that the education system can only cope with so much change before it seriously begins to crack.

Of course, this just adds weight to the number of reasons why homeschooling is the best way. But still, it also points to how the vaunted advantages of immigration are outweighed by the disadvantages.  When the government has the power to just replace workers with people who are just happy to be in the country, why on earth would they prioritize solving these cultural issues in the workforce? Mass immigration incentivizes politicians to be lazy. For that reason alone you should oppose it. 

The case against immigration is mounting.  

List of References

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[1] ABC News, 2024, https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/fears-students-will-suffer-as-burnout-contributes-to-unprecedented-teacher-shortages/ar-AA1q8dlj?ocid=msedgntp&pc=NMTS&cvid=3de40e23bd024a3fa3b410d2ac4dae56&ei=9

Does The Bible Teach Free Will?

 

One of the most perennial questions is whether or not free will is true or an illusion? Do we really have freedom, or are our decisions predetermined by God, or some greater force? This debate sits inside the church in the differences between the Arminian and Calvinist philosophies, with the former emphasizing that humans do have free will, and the latter leaning towards Christian determinism. Some Calvinists would assert that people have free will in lesser decisions, just not when it comes to choosing God, though Calvin and classical Reformed theology denied free will to a much larger extent.

This debate actually predates Christianity by at least several centuries. The Greeks had schools of philosophy that denied freewill and others that asserted it. The famous tale about Oedipus, who despite his decisions ended up fulfilling his fate to murder his father and marry his mother, is an example of the Greek idea of fatalism, which is just a form of determinism. And this debate exists still outside the church in the context of philosophical debates in science about whether our decisions are products of our brain chemicals, or whether or not we have an actual will which acts apart from our physical brain and matter. So, considering the size of this debate, the multiple layers of cross disciplinary influences on the debate, and the strong feelings which both sides bring to this debate, especially in the Christian context, I don’t think I can settle it completely for you in this one blog. But I think I can show quite comfortably that the Bible does support the idea of freewill, and does not teach that it is just an illusion.

We see in Genesis 1 how the Bible teaches that human beings were created to have dominion over the earth,

“26 Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:26-28).

To have dominion means to have authority and responsibility to rule the earth. God has delegated rulership to men and women, to have authority over the animals. This speaks of agency. To have regency over our sphere of authority is part of the human condition. One might respond that this is prefall, but Psalm 8 also says that we have dominion,

“5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas” (Ps. 8:5-7).

This was written by David long after the fall of man and it shows that we still have dominion. Man and woman were created to have authority to rule this earth. We are lesser nobility, with the Lord God himself being the true king, so our rulership cannot overrule or threaten his reign, but our rulership is no less real.

To have dominion obviously also means to be able to make decisions about how to rule. To prove that humanity's will was free and real at creation, Adam and Eve even had the ability to disobey God and choose to follow the devil. A foolish decision, of course, but a true and genuine exercise of the will nonetheless. The question is though, did free will survive the fall?

I think there are many ways to show that it did, in fact, I think you could argue that the fact that God gives commands and expects people to follow them is all the proof you need to show that God has not taken away our ability to choose. However, though he has not taken it away, this does not mean he cannot override it, as he did with Pharoah when he hardened his heart, or predetermined that Esau would reject him, but that Jacob would not. The existence of free will is not questioned, but nor is God’s ability to override it when he sees fit. Paul did not choose to be selected by Jesus, Jesus chose him and transformed him on the road to Damascus. So, we can say that freewill exists, but it is not absolute, God can and does override it to fulfil his special purposes.

But this does not take away that fact that by giving us commands God is implying we have the ability to choose him or choose to reject him, “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). The Bible is a record of just these kinds of choices being made on every page. And as if that was not enough, the Bible itself even says we have freewill, directly.

In the ESV translation there are at least 23 references to “freewill offerings”, for instance,

Exodus 35:29, “All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord.”

Leviticus 7:16, “But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a freewill offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day what remains of it shall be eaten.”

Deuteronomy 12:6, “and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.”

And there are even direct passages which tie these freewill offerings to acts of the will,

Psalm 54:6, “With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.”

Psalm 119:108, “Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me your rules.”

I will sacrifice to you an offering I have chosen of my own free will, is a good summary of those two verses in the Psalms. I think these verses by themselves are enough to show that the Bible affirms the reality of freewill. The fact that God has built freewill into the law shows that he has not taken it away, he has created an opportunity for it still within his law. There is much which he commands that we should do, but he gives us freedom to use our will to make offerings. The translators of the NJKV obviously recognized this, because of how they rendered Leviticus 19:5, “‘And if you offer a sacrifice of a peace offering to the Lord, you shall offer it of your own free will.”

Those of the Christian determinist camp will note examples where God hid his will from people, or suppressed the truth, and gave people over to blindness, as proof that there is no such thing as freewill about the things of God. But these verses above show that people can exercise freewill to choose the things of God, it is just also true that in his righteous decree and judgement God can override this if he so chooses, as he is the ultimate sovereign, the ultimate power.

We see often in the Bible how God chooses not to override the will of man, and instead allows man to reject him, even if we would prefer that they did not,

“37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matt: 23:37-39).

The clear desire of our Lord God here is that he wanted to gather his people, but the problem is they were “not willing.” If they did not have freewill to reject God and choose God, then this sentence would make no sense.

I do not expect this one blog piece to settle the debate, I will come back to this topic in a future piece and if you have objections to my readings of these verse let me know in the comments. But as you can see, there is plenty in the scriptures to show that the Bible supports the concept of freewill, however, as we should expect, it is not an absolute. God can, and does, override it to suit his purposes. Afterall, we may have dominion over the earth, but he is the ultimate authority, the sovereign Lord, and when he decrees something it will happen. In his mercy and grace though he gives us freewill so that he can have a people who choose to follow him.

 

Only Proof Needed

 

One of the best arguments to prove that WW2 was not a just or good war, is that you can trace the rapid moral decline of the West to that war, and probably even the previous one. But especially World War 2. From the moment those veterans came home they produced the most decadent generation in history, and the West was given over to the fruit of its evil actions. God didn't bless the West's actions in WW2, he judged them.

Even many of the men who dropped those bombs on civilians cities as a terror tactic knew they were murderers, not heroes. Many drunk themselves into an early grave. The mass social issues in the West after the war were all the proof we need to show that many of the men who came back were broken by their evil actions. Many men were heroes on the battlefield, every war has and produces genuine heroes, but many others knew that they were ordered to do evil and that they did do it. Many western governments even passed laws after the war to outlaw such things, because the evil was recognized, though not repented of.

The WW2 generation returned from the battlefields and promptly created the "me" generation, the boomers, who perfected consumerism. The boomers then created the nihilistic Generation x who saw no hope in consumerism and the anxiety driven Millennial generation, who saw no comfort in possessions (and can’t really afford much anyway). After this Gen x and Millennials created the "we are confused about our identity" generation, that Gen Z which is avoiding dating and marriage at record rates.

History will mark the two world wars, and especially the second, as the beginning of the reign of darkness in the West, where evil began to rise in force. And they'll note how much we lied to ourselves about our righteousness in those wars, because the reality was too hard for consumeristic materialists to confront honestly. It is easy to see the enemy's evil, it is much harder to see your own.

I believe that evil will be overcome, eventually, but the West that exists now must go through a time of trial and testing first to be restored to a good place and become again what the West should be, Christendom, or at least a refined and probably smaller version of it. A culture that has bombed its way to dominance but lies to itself about being the culture of freedom, lives on a bed of lies that is incredibly unstable. They must be exposed by harsh realities first.

You will often here people say that the generation who fought the war would be horrified by the world that their victory created, if they could see society today. This might be true in some ways. But I think many today who look back on the war fondly would be equally horrified if they looked at it through a critical rather than a propaganda lens. We still live in the wake of the successful WW2 propaganda campaign, but I think more and more people are starting to notice the reality of what happened. What really happened is the West turned down a road of severe darkness. It is our job to shine the light on that, so it can turn back the right way.

Poisoned By Society

I saw an article on my Bing news feed today about how Queensland's chief health officer thinks social media is the major driver of poor mental health amongst young people. Maybe he is partly right, but CHO's aren't that credible anymore, right?

“More than half of young Queenslanders are feeling stressed and anxious with health experts warning the sharp mental health decline is a result of social media.

Research by Health and Wellbeing Queensland revealed that nine in 10 people aged between 14 and 25 have experienced a negative change in their wellbeing in the past year.”[1]

But what about what kids are learning in schools? Maybe anxiety is a growing problem amongst kids because many of them are being taught that the end of the world is nigh because of climate inaction. Climate anxiety is a real thing in many young people. It never existed when we were kids, but now it does. Young people are being taught to be stressed out about the fact that we drive ICE cars, use air conditioners, and live in houses where we have an excess of room.

Of course, high divorce rates, increasing poverty, increasing homelessness, and all of that should be considered a significant part of the issue as well. But teaching an eschatology of climate destruction, that does not have a solution is a cruel and unusual way to teach children. It is pure conditioning and it is having a negative effect on our children who are not growing up with the same hope for the future that many past generations did.

Someone might respond here that doesn't Christianity teach about the end of the world and judgement? Of course it does. But it also offers hope that the end is actually a beginning and it gives a general offer of salvation to all so that they can escape that destruction through faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord God would never be so cruel as a public teacher or climate bureaucrat to preach judgement without salvation or hope.  

Of course the nihilism of modern education is going to make more and more kids depressed. How can it not? It is hard not to see it as designed to achieve that very purpose, because a hopeless people is much easier to push around.

Why would parents tolerate their kids being taught this stuff? I wonder about people sometimes.

List of References

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[1] Savannah Meacham, 2024,  https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/other/young-aussies-anxious-exhausted-stressed-research/ar-AA1pSweg?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=09f14e6bbc3545409c3a4010abf6693f&ei=14

Christianity Is About Controlling The Masses?

 

I was watching an episode of a show on the weekend and one of the characters, an autistic computer hacker savant, was sitting in a bible study meeting and when someone asked him if he wanted to share, he took the opportunity to attack religion. Not just Christianity, mind you, but all religion, all “organized-religion”. It was such a predictable moment that it took me out of the show. For one, it appeared as if the writers of the show had contrived the entire episode to create the opportunity just for this grandstanding moment. The whole episode seemed rather superfluous. Secondly, you could see it coming a mile away so clearly that there was literally nothing surprising or interesting about it. Thirdly, it was such a cliché attack on religion in general, and Christianity in particular, it was as if the writers of the show had gotten all their ideas from a first year philosophy course where the lecturer was a fan of 2008’s version of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. It was old hat, in many ways.

But something that the character said prompted me to meditate on how historically ignorant you would have to be to make the argument he was presenting. He brought up that old line that all religions, including Christianity, were created to control the population and make them docile. The old religion is the opiate of the mass’s argument. This line of attack is so used up and tired now that it probably does not have much effect on any serious thinking person. However, there is a kind of lazy thinker who still finds it to be an attractive line of thought, hence its usage in this show. So, let’s take a step back and consider this argument for a moment. Come reason with me, and let’s test the soundness of this position. You’ll see how far short it falls.

If you have not read the Bible you might not know the answer to this, but what is the most significant religious moment in the whole Old Testament? The answer is simple, outside of probably creation itself, the most significant moment is the Exodus. All of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is leading towards the Exodus, and all the rest of the Old Testament in large measure harkens back to it. It is the central salvation event in the Old Testament which frames how God’s people should see their Lord, each other, and this world.

What happened during the Exodus? Moses, at the instigation of He Who Is Who He Is, the Lord Almighty, led a rebellion and an insurrection against the largest empire in the known world at that time. It was such a cataclysmic event that Egypt never fully recovered from it, and it began to diminish as a result of the economic and social devastation caused by that Exodus. But take this into account, the central narrative of the Old Testament is an account of people choosing God over comfort, stability, and loyalty to the state, and being willing to suffer in the wilderness instead. There were times when many amongst the Hebrews regretted their decision and longed for the garlic and leeks of Egypt (Num. 11:5), but still, they chose to break free of their oppressors at the instigation of their Lord.

The central account of the first part of the most influential book in history was a kind of revolution that set people free from oppression. This event was to frame how this people saw themselves. This creates a unique kind of people. This creates a people who have a complicated and dynamic relationship with their leaders. There is much in the Old Testament which encourages and even commands submission to authority figures. But this submission to earthly leaders is always one link in a chain that leads to the highest authority, God himself, and those who know they can defy Pharoah at the command of God, also know that they can reserve the right to defy any other tyrant or leader who comes between them and God. How on earth can such a religion be accused of being created by tyrants to pacify populations?

Those who are familiar with Sunday school classes, even if not the whole Bible, will probably remember the account of Daniel and the Lions Den, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the blazing furnace. These two stories recount the godly defiance of unjust orders by four men who are considered heroes of the Christian faith. These men were part of the Jewish population in exile in Babylon at the instigation of the Lord himself, and they were under commands to work and pray for the welfare of the pagan cities amongst which they were sojourners (Jer. 29). Yet they also understood that being good citizens of heaven was a higher priority than being good citizens of any earthly kingdom, and so when these two things came into conflict they chose the higher priority. This is what makes them heroes. They chose to risk terrible deaths, Daniel at the jaws of hungry lions, and the other three the prospect of being burned alive, rather than risk defying their God.

They understood that the chain of authority is not a linear line. Yes, Kings stand at a higher point than the general populous in the hierarchy of authority ordained by God, but the authority of God overrules all other authorities at any point at which it comes into conflict with the authority of men. Therefore, everyone has a responsibility to follow God’s authority first. The kind of religion created by the Exodus creates the very kinds of heroes that we see in examples like Daniel and his three contemporaries. Men who obey God over other men. And they are not the only ones.

The most significant characters outside of the kings in the Old Testament are the prophets, who starting with Moses and ending with John the Baptist,[1] often found themselves in conflict with the state. Tradition tells us that Isaiah, who was a high-ranking priest in Judah, was sawn in half. Jeremiah’s conflict with the authorities he is prophesying against is famous and recounted in some detail in the book named after himself. Many other prophets also found themselves in a similar situation, because they challenged the state structures that were defying the authority of God. Jesus himself describes what a prophet can expect, “11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11-12). The whole concept of being one of these men was being willing to defy unjust orders, or general injustice when necessary. This creates a particular kind of faith, a faith where its adherents are expected to be willing to suffer for doing what is right, even when it is unpopular, especially when it is. 

This brings us squarely into the New Testament. Christians serve a Lord and Saviour who was murdered by the state, both Jewish and Roman, because he refused to play along with the traditions of the Jewish leaders. Take stock of that for a minute. Atheists, in all their grand intelligence, have the gall to argue that a religion where people serve a risen saviour who was killed for defying the state, was actually created to control the masses. Could you get a dumber premise? This premise is so illogical, to even assert it you would have to work really hard to either not think deeply about it, or to have worked equally hard to make sure you have never engaged with Christianity on a serious intellectual level.

Christians serve a Lord and Saviour who said stuff like this, “28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). And who also said stuff like this, “37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:36-38).

I once considered writing a piece entitled Righteous Rebels, but I decided not to do so as the Bible is clear that the sin of rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (1 Sam. 15:23). The motivation for Christians to defy tyranny is not based on a heart of rebellion, at least it is not meant to be. It is deeply grounded in a love for God and a love for our fellow man. We know we are called to prioritize our love for God and his commands above all else, and we are to oppose that which does wrong to our fellow human beings. This can bring us into conflict with the state even when we would prefer that it did not, because often the state is directed by men who defy the commands of our Lord.  

I can tell you that most Christians, along with most unbelievers, would prefer to live a quiet life, minding their own business. This is our default setting. Indeed, we are told to prefer this in Scripture, “…and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,…” (1 Thess. 4:11). You will even find Christians who define their faith around this sentiment, they want to withdraw from the world, work the land quietly, stay away from people, and stay as far away from any trouble as humanly possible. But remember, this passage was written by a man who was often coming into conflict with people both inside his churches and outside of them, from both Jews and Gentiles. Sometimes entire cities were thrown into a tumult, to such a point that once he was confused by a Roman soldier of being a violent Egyptian revolutionary (cf. Acts 21:38) even though he raised a hand to no one. We should prefer peace and quiet, and even work towards that, but there is what we would prefer and then there is what we sometimes have to oppose because God would not have us go along with evil. When evil rises this can bring quiet and peaceful Christians into conflict with the world.

The tyrants of this world have often been hammers that the devil has sought to wield to destroy the Church, but he often comes into conflict with the anvil of the perseverance of the saints of the Lord who refuse to budge. Think of Peter, who exclaimed when he was told to defy Jesus by the Jewish religious leaders, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Much of world history recounts time after time where tyrants sought to force the church to obey their will and failed to do so. Not because Christians have a spirit of rebellion, but because we are called to meekness, and meekness means we are prepared to stand like oaks in a headwind when confronted with the choice between doing evil and obeying God. Christians know that our virtue of self-control is directly connected to our submission to God, and therefore, there are times when the meek will boldly proclaim No! to those who want them to override their conscience.

Now, I should note before I finish, that yes, there have been times when the state has overcome the authority in the Church and used the structure of the Church as a hammer against godly men and women. But whenever this situation arises, God lifts up ordinary men and women who will even stand up to that. Every believer knows they have a direct line from their conscience to God that no priest can override, and therefore, many believers have been forced even to confront ecclesiastical authorities across history as well. So, even those times which sceptics might use as proof of their position, times when Christianity was co-opted by corrupt forces, disprove their overall thesis. Christianity is designed from the inside out to be a self-critiquing religion where every human authority is shown its limits.

If you wanted to create a religion to pacify the masses then Christianity is the opposite of what you would come up with. Christianity is the anti-tyranny faith. It is the bane of oppressors throughout history. It is the thorn in the side of many humans who seek to claim absolute power. Jesus Christ is the greatest slayer of tyrants, precisely because he overcame evil with his death and resurrection, and inspires in his believers a hope in a better world. When believed and correctly applied Christianity makes great citizens, who always reserve the right, when needed, to remind their authorities who the greatest authority is; the Lord Jesus Christ. Tyrants hate that. 

List of References

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[1] Though he is written about in the New Testament, John marks the transition between how God worked in the Old Testament to how he is changing things for the New Testament.