Thursday 7 April 2011

The Spiritual Influence

A couple of weeks back at the annual conference of the Christian Broadcasting Council, Michael Nazir-Ali issued a warning regarding totalitarianism and the threat it represented with regard to conscience. The reality is that it is neither threat, nor 'encroaching' danger, but a clear and present reality as we see both private and public life legislated, regulated and generally controlled.

People of no faith make decisions regarding faith and the part it plays, or more accurately doesn't play. People with little, skewed or no obvious moral standards make rules and decide what is right. What we have is the blind and insane driving the bus and ruling the asylum respectively!

The outworking of this is, as Nazir-Ali rightly says, that we are no longer in a free society but in "An ideology that is seeking to impose its views on us.” Were we in a free society we might have a hope, but this hope is gone as we lose the moral and spiritual values that once valued what was good and right for the hedonistic, self-serving secular society that many crave.

We no longer value that which is good. We no longer have a respect for the sanctity of human life. We know the price of everything and the value of nothing and thus have become shallow and cynical (Thank you Mr. Wilde, just as you rightly identified it!).

We are driven by fear and the desire for a 'quiet life', hence the fact that none will challenge the more aggressive forms of religious group and yet will stand tall at the weak and meek groups, like the Christians. Our society picks its fights and denies that which might make it stop and look in the mirror.

Failing families? The answer is to give the family a place of pride and to offer it support. The traditional parents (married and working at a life-long bond), children brought up in a stable and loving environment (which is about relationships, not income, educational standards and possessions. Oddly, from within this comes a nurturing that encourages aspirations and a culture of self-development and attainment.

Criminal Activity? As unpopular as it seems, there is an answer to this. 'STOP IT!' So many of those I meet today have a morality that supports and defends 'dodgy' ways. The ends justify the means and who cares if the rules are just a little broken as long as we get what we want?

Life? I listened with interest and despair at a broadcast where families spoke of the 'kindness' of euthanasia. It was kind on them because they didn't want to keep visiting. It was kind on them because it was costing a great deal to keep the focus of the care being cared for. It was kind on the aged relative, because their 'useful' life had come to an end and they were no longer in possession of a 'quality of life'.

Faith brings a commonality of purpose and a value for life. Christian faith has done that in the UK for a very long time and I have come to the conclusion that the erosion of Christian values and the decline in our society with regards to family, vales, standards and morality appear to me to be the result of the other.

Faith brings a tolerance (it's people looking for an excuse for their greed who use 'religion' as the reason for war). Faith isn't about being religion but is, in the Christian context, about having a relationship with the Maker and a respect (and tolerance - that word again) for others.

This is why people can burn Korans. This is why people murder and plot evil. They don't know the Maker - they just want things as they, and the god of their making, want them - and this is death.

Pax

13 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

Woe! Woe! and thrice Woe!
I thought I was depressed till I read your blog. Now, I feel almost optimistic about the life I see going on around me.
Yes, we do live in a greedy, self-serving society.
Yes moral standards are declining.
Yes, social collective conscience is no longer part of the structure of British life. But, everywhere small groups of good people are getting together to improve small sections of that failing structure. Responses to appeals for help wherever disaster strikes are immediate and huge.
More children are being baptised than for many years. Projects to make life easier for the physically and mentally marginalised are sprouting up everywhere.
There actually is hope if you look in the right places.

Ray Barnes said...

Woe! Woe! and thrice Woe!
I thought I was depressed till I read your blog. Now, I feel almost optimistic about the life I see going on around me.
Yes, we do live in a greedy, self-serving society.
Yes moral standards are declining.
Yes, social collective conscience is no longer part of the structure of British life. But, everywhere small groups of good people are getting together to improve small sections of that failing structure. Responses to appeals for help wherever disaster strikes are immediate and huge.
More children are being baptised than for many years. Projects to make life easier for the physically and mentally marginalised are sprouting up everywhere.
There actually is hope if you look in the right places.

Ray Barnes said...

Woe! Woe! and thrice Woe!
I thought I was depressed till I read your blog. Now, I feel almost optimistic about the life I see going on around me.
Yes, we do live in a greedy, self-serving society.
Yes moral standards are declining.
Yes, social collective conscience is no longer part of the structure of British life. But, everywhere small groups of good people are getting together to improve small sections of that failing structure. Responses to appeals for help wherever disaster strikes are immediate and huge.
More children are being baptised than for many years. Projects to make life easier for the physically and mentally marginalised are sprouting up everywhere.
There actually is hope if you look in the right places.

Ray Barnes said...

Sorry about the triple response.
Either I or my mad machine need some help!

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

I thought that was the thrice woe Ray!

Ray Barnes said...

Boom Boom!

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with your assessment that it is the people of faith who make this nation of ours a better place.

They have given us a legacy and are still alive and well. We just need to stop apologising and take our place as salt and light.

Fancy a job, we need a new Rector?

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

The wife asked where the job was?

(She's joking, honest!)

Thanks for the comments.

We are the difference thanks to the love of God, the cross of Christ and the Holy Spirit in us.

UKViewer said...

I have to agree with Ray, I thought that I was actually quite optimistic about life, seeing the green shoots of renewal in small ways everywhere. Then, I read the post!

I'm sure that all of it is true and accurate, and needs careful reflection to draw the truths in it, which we can see for ourselves. I just wonder if the flip side of the coin is the small things spoken of by Ray and anon, which will come up?

It seems to me that your comment actually answers my thoughts:

"We are the difference thanks to the love of God, the cross of Christ and the Holy Spirit in us".

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

I was quite optimistic after I wrote it because I'd heard nothing but negatives and no reason for them and then realised that we were the solution!

The problem is that people aren't looking at Christians as the answer but as the problem.

Smile - we are the answer!!!

Revsimmy said...

As I tried to post earlier, but Blogger stole my words:

Um. Yes and No. I agree that things are getting a little more difficult for Christians and others of religious faith, particularly if they hold more conservative views on morality. But I think +Nazir-Ali and others need to be very careful about over-egging the totalitarianism/persecution line 1. because I don't see us actually being persecuted at the moment, especially compared with what others have experienced at different places and times; and 2. because the Christian Church itself does not have a sparkling track record when it comes to having political and social power. It can end up being oppressive towards those who do not share its views. Morality does not always translate well into a legal framework, and it tends to breed a certain degree of self-righteousness and judgementalism if we are not careful. Within my own lifetime our so-called Christian society has seen fit to consign many young single mothers to mental and other institutions while forcibly sending their offspring to far-flung corners of the Commonwealth to be exploited in dubious orphanages.

However, I agree with Ray and others that there are plenty of signs of hope. I wish that our energies could be directed towards making a difference that people will recognise rather than joining the list of groups appealing for victim status.

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

I don't agree with the victim mentality either.

What I see from where I am is an identification that there is a need and that Christian, engaged and involved, are the answer.

The key is to balanced application of the Christian faith. Like Simmy, I too have noticed that the Church doesn't have a great track record, but am sure it has a great future.

Thanks for the comments,

V

John Thomas said...

Good article Vic. Absolutely right that it's here, not coming. I call our present system "Soft Stalinism". There aren't any gulags or stalags (yet) but if you don't toe the official line, you'll soon know about it; and the education system, media etc., is definitely out to replace Judeo-Christian values with Materialist-dervied ones (values based on purely-this-worldly standards). As for euthanasia: "Their lives not worth living, now" - who sez?