One always approaches the word of God in a context. It depends on where you are emotionally and spiritually, true. There are many mornings when I feel unworthy to deal with the word of God, for the first thing I have to do is confess to the Almighty. I was taught (and keep) short accounts with him, but that matters little: I can err between getting vertical and the first cup of coffee. As the psalmist said, in sin my mother conceived me[1], and there is not right within me.
This week, the context is that we are witnessing the meltdown of the left. We can see this with immigration, and we can see this with the advice bishops have given the Anglican Church.
Ian Bibby notes that the narrative is not merely a lie, but those promoting this know it is a lie, and all their effort is going into keeping the lie going.
Well, the immediate reason is that, like all totalitarians, they are pushing a narrative that conflicts with observable reality, and they know it. Getting people to submit to their narrative therefore requires preventing them from acknowledging reality. This requires that the false narrative be constantly pounded into people’s minds everywhere they go, and that they be prevented from reflecting and thinking rationally about it, because if they are left to their own devices, they will naturally see what’s right in front of their noses, and reality will be allowed in to destroy the narrative. As such, EVERYTHING in your life needs to be turned into propaganda for the narrative – the video games you play, the books you read, the comedy you watch, the radio you listen to, the people you associate with – ALL of it. You must be given no respite, no rest, nowhere to escape to even for a moment, because any sort of escapism is likely to allow you to entertain thoughts that conflict with the narrative, that recover your sanity and reorient you to reality.
The passage today, when I saw it, read like a manual. It discusses how we should handle the lies of this world. There has always been a narrative. There has always been deceit. And the answers to this are structure and integrity. Self discipline in how we act, truth and obedience to the plain teaching of scripture in our fellowship.
So that we are mature, and not like children.
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
(Ephesians 4:1-16 ESV)
If we believe the lies and the narrative, we will remain child like. We have to be mature. This means that we have to support each other. A week ago that meant I turned to the Pro Photog and said “No” when she was craving for a cake, for the ingredients in that cake had made her very ill previously.
And you have to watch the term inclusion. It generally means, to a SJW, that you will accept a person where they are and not correct them. Particularly if you are of an approved class: to the liberals that is divorced or single mothers and gay men.
But shame cannot be tolerated. Vox, quoting Ian, and then commenting, suggests that this shame drives the lies.
Of course, nearly everyone is ashamed of something, so that doesn’t explain SJWs all by itself. SJWs are made by how they deal with it. There are a lot of healthy ways to deal with shame, depending on the underlying reason for it. You can seek to improve your habits, you can repent and make amends to people you’ve wronged, you can seek forgiveness from God, you can realize that it’s nothing to be ashamed of and come to terms with it, you can find some escape to help you cope, etc.
But SJWs deal with it in the worst way possible, and that’s the factor that makes them SJWs. The SJW seeks to rationalize away their shame by pinning the blame for it on everyone else. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” they tell themselves, “I only feel bad because society has oppressed me with it’s arbitrary, regressive norms. In fact, I’m more progressive and enlightened that everyone else for realizing this. They should be ashamed! I should be judging them!”
From what I’ve seen, SJWs disproportionately come from the low-end of the social totem pole and the ugly end of the attractiveness spectrum. I suspect that gamma rage-against-society and ugly female rage-against-society also play a substantial factor in what motivates SJWs to behave as they do.
Now, SJW always double down. Curry, who is leading the apostate Episcopalians into irrelevance, considers that they are at the forefront of inclusion by promoting not merely women but homosexual clergy to bishops. And I don’t mean men who are celibate and dealing with a desire for David Bowie Brad Pitt or Milo: I mean those living in a carnal relationship or being overtly promiscuous. We discipline men who run a soft harem or straight couples who shack up[2]. The same rules apply.
What these people forget is that if you are not responsible for your actions, if you lack moral accountability, you are either an imbecile or a child. We protect such: no man or woman considers a three year old can consent to anything, even life saving surgery. A child is a child.
But SJW want us to remain slaves to the narrative. to place responsibility elsewhere, and remain children, tossed from side to side by the narrative. This is not what should be. The intension is that we become mature. We start telling the truth to ourselves. We start acknowledging that we are frail and weak. We place disciplines around ourselves.
And we become firm in the faith, We confess our shame, and trust in Christ’s forgiveness and atoning sacrifice. And then, this day ant tomorrow, we live as well as wel can.
So let us chase perfection, and deny the narrative that holds us back.
UPDATE.
Yes, the projection of blame on the African churches, with a fair amount of patronizing, is beginning, as predicted. This is the reaction of a child in kindergarten.
Memories of this paternalistic and monochrome view of Africa returned as I observed the response of some members of the Episcopal Church to the recent meeting of the Primates. I have listened as we lambasted “the Africans” as if they form one country that spoke one language and shared one view of the world: apparently, uninformed bigotry.[1] We have pretended that they are not a multi-cultural continent with the same mix of good and bad that is indicative of all societies. I must say this as plainly as possible: If Korea, Japan, India, and China shared a similar view on human sexuality would we blame — implicitly and explicitly — “Asian” culture? Would we speak about them as a monolith? Would we assume that they are unthinking and “behind” America and the West? This smacks of cultural imperialism. It is cultural imperialism.
Western Anglican media coverage of Africa often follows a familiar pattern. The coverage of non-Western Anglicans usually focuses on economic development, especially the work of Western companion dioceses in the third world. The subtle message is clear: theology is for the West; the Global South receives our aid. Thus, when the Anglican Communion does gather to discuss issues of theology and Africans repeat the official teaching of the Communion and the teaching of the vast majority of Christians everywhere, they are rebuked for taking the focus away from the common mission (of African economic development) that unites the Communion. We seem to be confused as to how those Africans would dare do this after we have spent the last thirty years congratulating ourselves for granting the aid that we have made the basis of our common life. We cannot understand why they would be so divisive and on the wrong side of our definition of justice.
African Anglicans who oppose changing the Communion’s teaching on sexuality may not know that their views violate a central tenet of progressive thought. Their opposition challenges what appears to be the canonical interpretation of the black experience in the Episcopal Church in the United States. This definition unites the experiences of the descendants of the slaves, women, those stigmatized for their sexual orientation, and now Muslims into a single narrative of oppression and freedom.
Guys, the African Anglicans are orthodox and speak truth. The Episcopalian leadership are apostate and speak the narrative. The fact that both groups of leaders are currently melanin enriched is immaterial: what matters is faithfulness. And to those who say their are faults in the African church would find these leaders would agree with you. THey know church discipline. And they know it is painful: to do your duty when your brother does not repent.
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1. I’m adopted: my conception was quite inconvenient to a certain nursing student. And in this feminist era, there would be a high chance I wouold have been dead before the first trimester was over. I honour my birth mother, for she had the courage to have me. For the historically challenged, the oral contraceptive was not in clinical use in the early 1960s.
2. If we do not discipline such, we ought to. Calling those in serious sin to repent is our duty.
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