Transcendent Authority & The Public Square

When any community of people loses a Transcendent and Authoritative “Center” that governs all morality and institutions, it has then embarked on the road to disintegration.

When the USA launched a deliberate and intentional campaign to rid the Public Square of God and His Truth, the seeds of our destruction had been sown. No prayer in the schools. The elevation of the individual over the community. The persistent elevation of man with unlimited ‘freedom’ to make rather than abide by any transcendent Law doomed us to fragmentation of the loss of community.

The onslaught persists. The Freedom From Religion folks are now trying to tell the football coach at Clemson University that he may not guide his players, albeit voluntarily to engage in Christian worship and activities.

The FFR folks tried that here in Cullman. The community response, we still have community here, was 5,000+ turned out for an impromptu Prayer Meeting.

Ask yourself this question – - ‘Are we better off today than we were in 1950?’

That deeper issue was the vogue of moral relativism specifically, Lippmann was concerned that there were no longer any transcendent moral standards to which to appeal in guiding either the government or the people. In the first half of the 20th century, there had been a trend to separate the law from reference to any higher moral system. Lippmann had now come to see that as a dangerous innovation. Institutions of free societies, the observed, had been founded “on the postulate that there was a universal order on which all reasonable men were agreed.” In the era of the America’s founding, even if the more secular thinkers and the traditional Christians may have differed on the exact source of that order and its content, “they did agree that there was a valid law which, whether it was the commandment of God or the reason of things, was transcendent.” Speaking of such essential principles as “freedom of religion and of thought and of speech,” Lippmann affirmed that “the middle of the seventeenth and eighteenth century who established these great salutatory rules would certainly have denied that a community could do without a general public philosophy.” But the idea, so essential to establishing democratic institutions, that there was such a higher moral order had not survived modern pluralism,” and “with the disappearance of the public philosophy–and a consensus on the first and last things–there was opened up a great vacuum in the public mind, yawning to be filled.” (George Marsden, The Twilight Of The American Enlightenment, p. 46 quoting Walter Lippmann in Essays In The Public Philosophy, 1955).

I vote NO! What about you?

Words & Their Importance

To ensure my status as a ‘Grumpy Old Man’ I offer the following:

The majority of people succumb to what I label as the ‘lemming syndrome’. Lemmings are those creatures that run as a crowd. What one does, they all do. Your children come home from school. They say ‘I need a pair of X shoes because “everyone” has them’. That means 2 or 3 other people. Suddenly, the entire class room is shod with that particular foot wear.

This same principle applies in the speech patterns for our culture. This is also true of those who claim to be Christians. People seek acceptance and so they adopt the cultural and behavior patterns of those around them. The text of Scripture warns about this scrum. Words and their relationships give meaning to language. Of all people, those who claim the Name of Christ should exercise a high degree of integrity in their speech patterns. Scripture has much to say about our words, speech. This is so regarding both the content and substance of what we say.

With this as a brief context I offer the following. Examine the following words thoughtfully. Are you a ‘Lemming’?

Peep – When I was a young man ‘peeps’ were little chickens that the mail man delivered in a card board box. They often provided eggs or even ‘chicken dinners’ depending on the purpose for which they were purchased. I am NOT a ‘peep’.

Chill – We have a gas log fire place in our living room. With the push of a button we have a toasty warm fire that takes ‘the chill’ off the temperature in that room. This is a great place to read a book with a steaming hot cup of coffee. I do NOT ‘chill’.

Hang – Hanging was abolished decades ago. This practice tends to truncate your longevity. The intended meaning is almost always a deleterious waste of time. Not an acceptable investment for believers to engage on any consistent basis. I do NOT ‘hang’.

OK – enough already. You get the drift. Try abandoning the ‘lemming syndrome’ and introduce your friends and associates to the language of redemption; sin, salvation, Savior, and eternity. Those words have substance and real meaning. Your speech reveals your heart. What are your words telling people about who you are?