This blog post was inspired by an article in First Things May 2021 by Jenna and Benjamin Storey, “Pixelated Souls.”
It
was a fact that in the Sixteenth Century, western civilization was caught on
the horns of a dilemma, conflicting loyalties between Christ and the King. It
was a “psycho-political” problem, well-articulated by the philosopher, Thomas Hobbes.
A generation later, the problem was largely dispelled by the philosopher, John
Locke, who concluded that people could resolve the problem by compartmentalizing
it into two distinct loyalties. They could be good Christians and good citizens
at the same time.
Today
we have more than two loyalties which pull at us incessantly. All sorts of
things grab for our loyalties, values, and behaviors. Currently we are called
upon to proclaim fealty to various identity groups, our jobs, families, church,
politics, social forces, etc., etc. All this confusion is aggravated by our
lock-in to social media. We have a great problem of trying to figure out what
is important in our modern lives. These problems make us distracted, restless,
and unable to get most anything together—confusion reigns!
The
Storeys remind us that we are threatened by a dispersion of forces, whose
claims on us are ever-shifting. Pulled in a dozen different directions, we are
unable to subject our days to any clear purpose. We move through time reacting
to influences and often not able to control anything to our satisfaction.
We seem
forced to take all our cues in life from screens on our computers or cell phones.
Email reminds us of professional obligations and opportunities. YouTube
promises diverting relief from the press of demands; and many eye-catching
visions keep us off balance in trying to get a fix on anything meaningful. In
the conflict of pulls against us, we lose sight of who we are; and the
electronic world distances us from our fellows in the world around.
Liberal
politics did not do any of us much good. Its claims of showing us the important
things of life are shallow, transitory, and ultimately meaningless for the most
part. Yet…its claims are frequently fascinating to us. But these
liberal/progressive forces do not design anything lasting or ultimately meaningful.
Our problems of values come at us in a completely random fashion, all
aggravated by rapidly developing technology. The women’s movement has done us
no good. It has taken mothers out of the home in search of a more affluent
standard of living and thus, it has taken away from our children the stability
and basic understandings of moral and spiritual truths that used to be
transmitted by mothers (and fathers). The value of reading good books also
seems to be lost today in favor of video games.
Several
decades ago, our forbears had an answer to the problems of dispersion we are
experiencing today; and we would do well to listen to the past in this
confusing world. There was a time in America when life was oriented around
family, faith, and patriotism. We need to get back to those old-fashioned values.
Those old values and identities can make life meaningful to us. Christ and the
Bible have answers upon which we need to reorient ourselves. There is meaning
in life! “Life is real, life is earnest; and the grave is not its goal. Dust thou
art; to dust returnest was not written of the soul.”
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