I thought this could start, and will contain some music from my salad days. I was 17 when the punk revolution started and went to University during the Thatcherite revolution. Billy Bragg has always impressed me as a socialist, yes, but one who with clear eyes documents not only the hassles of the working class but the cruelties they do to each other.
For there is dross in every generation, and the church is not immune.This is a comment that BF with my discussion edited down.. M Scott Peck shares my profession, but not my theology, being of the Arminian persuasion, and at times quite wetly liberal. However, he did identify people who lie within the church. We used to call them evil. We now prefer to (wrongly) medicalize them as psychopaths or borderline.
Way off topic: my Mom recently bought me the book “People of the Lie” by M. Scott Peck. It made me feel better about my issues concerning people I’d encounter at church. In fact, it kind-of helped restore my faith in Christ. I thought Jesus was an ineffective deity because I kept encountering evil, vicious, compassion-lacking devout Christians. In his book, Peck said that evil people use religion to masquerade their evil, as well as a means to obtain power and influence over others. They’re just pretending to accept Christ into their lives. They put a lot of effort into their charade [going to church, praying, etc.] but since they were never genuine Christians in the first place, they can’t completely cover-up their evil. I like to visualize it using Science Fiction terminology: they’re imperfect simulacrums.
Gosh, I wish I would have read his book years ago. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.
There are plenty of poisonous people in the church. Scott Peck, like me is a psychiatrist, and we tend to collect them: in fact every self help or therapeutic movement has them. One test is the look for power. They are playing politics to be the head of the women’s auxiliary, have their daughter lead the choir etc.
Now, at times we wax lyrical. There has been a scathing comment from Alte on the generation that I guess I/m part of but I don’t want to think about (in fact, I spend a fair amount of time talking with another commentator about how those only a few years older than us really drive us nuts for exactly the same reasons Alte lists.
Things the Boomers have taught us:
1) Marriage is stupid. Get divorced.
2) Children don’t need fathers.
3) Buy stuff you don’t need with money you don’t have.
4) God is dead.
5) Marriage really is stupid. Get divorced again.
6) Kill people you find inconvenient. If you can’t kill them, imprison them.
7) Daycare and nursing homes are good enough.
Screw your kids by spending their future money on more stuff you don’t need.
9) Trash the environment cause your kids aren’t worth the trouble.
10) Oh forget it. Just skip the marriage-divorce thing and shack up.Yes, the wisdom they’ve imparted has been really useful. I’ll pass, thanks.
Before I comment further, I think another distraction. Billy Bragg is of my generation, and this is my generations version of “Jerusalem”
There is a book called the Fourth Turning that Grerp reviewed a couple of years ago. I’ve just read this book, and it has what is called face validity — it gives a plausible explanation for what is happening. From Grerps review, which would be better than mine:
To boil it down to its basics, the book is about an 80- to 100-year cycle that has taken place throughout American history, dating back into English history, wherein, in the course of four generations, society swings from focusing on community and doing what is best for the community to focusing on individual freedom and doing what will most allow personal freedom to flourish. This cycle has four definable eras, or turnings:
The High – “an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays”
The Awakening – “a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime”
The Unraveling – “a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order decays and the new values regime implants”
The Crisis – “a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.” [pg. 3]Strauss and Howe also identify clear four generational archetypes:
A Prophet generation is born during a High
A Nomad generation is born during an Awakening
A Hero generation is born during an Unraveling
An Artist generation is born during a Crisis [pg. 19]The way a generation forms – physically, spiritually, politically, ideologically, emotionally, sexually – depends on which generations come before and the environment they have created for it to develop in.
The authors argue that the boomers were born during the Post-war American High and are the Prophet generation that set the tone for those of us who follow, and then next generation (Gen X) was born during the Awakening. Well, Alte is about 20 years younger than me and counts herself as Gen X, and I (for one) agree with her.
But… each generation has those who stand with integrity, and those who compromise. Each generation has its radicals. Each generation has its cowards, villains, and those who foment evil. Each generation has its errors.
Our job now is to confront the errors of this time. Billy is now loved by those in power who are continually reliving their time on the pickets, at Greenham Common, and fighting Apartheid. But that time is past. The problems we are facing now are the systemic murder of Christians by ascendant Islamists.. the similar hatred and destruction of Jews, Baha’i and Buddhists, the destruction of the moral foundations of Western society, from financial systems to the family.
It is our duty to fight the battles of this time. The past is past. We owe the future to stand for the truth in the present, and to not be people of the lie.