I don’t have a good name for the long generational cycle that is reaching its end-stage. It probably started in 1967: I was in primary school, so don’t blame me. But the hippies took a long march through the institutions, destroying logical positivism and class analysis along the way, leaving us without any sense of place, and a fractured society.

For their passions count more than their love for one another. If you love another, then you want the best for them — even if it means working out how to delete photos, and modify what you eat for another person’s health — and when they succeed you are happy, when they fail you build them up. But this is not the way of the world now. One must censor, and the destruction of lives brings joy.

Now how do we find this in the church? Look for divisions. Look for people who pit men against women, rich against poor, those without melanin against those who have it (and do not need sunblock all year round) and make in and out factions within the congregations. And the simple lesson for today is don’t do that

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

(Jude 1:17-25 ESV)

The Social Justice Warrior / Progressive memes have reached the point where many of my friends, who care deeply for the poor and have been staunch supporters of the Left and unions, are saying these things are ridiculous. The concern about process and being correct is now inhibiting people acting to do good. And this is wrong: at the end of any age the injustices of the system that the last revolution promoted are apparent to all.

Willcox is in my opinion the leading public policy figure arguing that marriage is in trouble and if we don’t change course the economic and human costs will be enormous. The problem is, right now making meaningful changes to the legal structure designed to remove fathers from the home (child support and no fault divorce) is unthinkable. This is the case because the true costs of our system are still not evident. So far nearly all White women are still able to marry, and we haven’t seen the full dysfunction large scale multi-generational fatherlessness will cause. But as the costs become more undeniable we will first see more and more calls for men to man up and make our feminist redesigned family structure work, and eventually we will start to see more and more calls to dial back the worst excesses of the family court. But at least at first these will only be half measures, moving from denial to bargaining as reality sets in.

What isn’t clear to me is how much economic and social pain our elites will be willing to bear before starting to acknowledge the problem. It also isn’t clear that when the half measures they then grudgingly propose fail, they will be willing and able to reform the system enough to turn around both the family and the economy. We are squandering an incredible amount of goodwill by men regarding marriage, and the longer we wait to seriously address the issue the harder it will be to turn the problem around.

I fear for our societies. The number of disasters is increasing: there has been another mass killing in Australia today, and at times I want to just shut the door of my bubble and hide. It hurts a lot less than dealing with broken people, and confronting error, taking the risk that I will be rendered unemployable because doubleplusungoodthink. It appears that the endgame of this time was Orwell — instead of being a dystopia, his books are being used as models.

But I cannot. I am imperfect. I fail constantly. I’m no leader, and at times I am a very bad example. But if I can assuage the doubts of one or two, snatching them from the fire that will destroy this generational cycle and their works (if not in this life, the next) then this blog has a purpose.

In the meantime, love and listen to those in the faith that irritate you. For the spirit of God will be there when you unite in worship and doing good.