Year: 2011

Century Of The Self

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM

If you want an aide in explaining the 20th century and how we have arrived at where we are today I would highly recommend the above link. It is my conviction that this or something like this should be ingested by every pastor in America worth their salt.

It is a four hour video that deals with how psychoanalysis has created and controlled consumerism by its manipulation of the sovereign self. It also delves in how pychobabble has become hegemonic in business and politics. The psychological has become hegemonic in business because the Corporate realm used the “insights” of pyscho-analysis to sell product and to manipulate the market. The psychological has become hegemonic in Politics because the same insights that were gleaned by Corporate America were used by the Political parties and consultants to create and manage coalitions and constituencies.

The reason that having a grip on this kind of material is so important is because the hegemony of the pagan psychological is not restricted to the business and political realm but now rules over education, family and church realms. As one views the video one begins to realize how much of the technique used by Corporate America to push product has been brought into the Church to sell Jesus. From focus groups (church small groups) to  the art of giving people what they want to the importation of the psychological into the Pastor’s ability to counsel, the Church has become a mirror of the satisfaction of the self.

The  documentary chronicles shifts in how the self  has been handled over the decades since the 1920’s but in each case the self is seen as being autonomous. At different periods the self has been seen as irrational and governed by primal desires,  to being basically good and so in need of being released, to being destructive and so in necessity of elites providing control. At no time however, in the last almost century, has there been any consideration of the self in relation to the God of the Bible. The self is autonomous and so needs to be either controlled by elites through mass consumption and political managing, or set free in a Dionysian frenzy to be channeled by clever marketing.

One comes away from the documentary firmly believing that it really is the case that the pagan is socially engineered. Apart from the God of the Bible and His Christ one easily become the “New Soviet Man,” or the “New Man” of whatever regime is in control. If there is no objective standard by which one can find a means by which the self can find identity then the self can only remain a subjective self always measuring itself against the larger cultural framework that is set up as a subjective (and so unreal) objective standard.

In the video you discover some important names that you’ve probably never heard of before. From Edward Bernays to Anna Freud to William Reich to Herbert Marcuse to many others one begins to discover some of the unseen hands behind the century of the self and the social engineering that has transpired.

The documentary underscores something else that I’ve been saying for several years now. The documentary makes the epistemologically self conscious realize that the way that much of the Church and its pastorate operates in the West today is  counter-productive to Biblical Christianity. The Church and its pastorate has largely made peace with the socially engineered paganism that is now characteristic of Western Christianity. That this is so is seen in the reality that the goal of the Church today is to help people adjust to this false reality that is called the “century of the self.” Pastors have redefined Christianity against this backdrop and use what they now call Christianity as a lever to have people conform and so get on in this alien world and life view. The Church and the Pastorate that is being the Church should instead be telling people that there is a problem if they are comfortable in the false paradigm that has been created and is known as the “century of the self.”

Pastors and Churches that go with the socially engineered self of the times will have the opportunity to advance far in this world, if that is their vision. Pastors and Churches who see through the shell game and lift their voices to announce the Emperor’s nakedness will likely struggle.

Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

Dr. David VanDrunen’s Silliness

#1 — “A two-kingdoms doctrine, distinguishes what is uniquely ‘Christian’ from what is simply ‘human’ [….] Generally speaking, to be ‘human’ here and now means living in the common kingdom under the Noahic covenant. Christians share the life and activities of the common kingdom with all human beings. What differentiates them from the rest of humanity is their identification with the redemptive kingdom and all that that entails.” (p.167)

#2 — “Learning, working, and voting are not uniquely Christian tasks, but common tasks. Christians should always be distinguished from unbelievers subjectively: they do all things by faith in Christ and for his glory. But as an objective matter, the standards of morality and excellence in the common kingdom are ordinarily the same for believers and unbelievers: they share these standards in common under God’s authority in the covenant with Noah.” (p.31)

#3 — “[T]he normative standards for cultural activities are, in general, not distinctively Christian. By this I mean that the moral requirements that we expect of Christians in cultural work are ordinarily the same moral requirements that we expect of non-Christians, and the standards of excellence for such work are the same for believers and unbelievers.” (p.168)

#4 — “[A] writer promotes a ‘contemporary Christian perspective on business,’ which promotes the principles of fair trading practices for workers, healthy local businesses, and Christian-run start-up businesses that ‘lovingly serve the needs of fellow citizens.’ [These] principles are admirable, but there is nothing distinctively ‘new creation’ or ‘Christian’ about […] them. All of these principles are grounded in the present created order and the terms of the Noahic covenant.” (p.193-4)

Living in God’s Two Kingdoms
David VanDrunen

#1 — Note how R2K aficionado VanDrunen abstracts Christian from human identity as if one can be human without at the same time being Christian or non-Christian. VanDrunen sets up a human identity that operates in his common realm that is undefined by that identities relation to or non relation to Jesus Christ.

Also note on this score that any thinking that suggests that the embrace of Christ makes one more truly “human” according to God’s original design must necessarily be seen as fatuous. To be human, according to VanDrunen, is to live in the common realm. Whether we are Christian or non Christian is irrelevant as it relates to identity as “human.”

Finally, we see on this quote that once again, Van Drunen has dualistically compartmentalized the common realm from the redemptive realm. In the redemptive realm we can call ourselves “Christian,” with all that that means but in the “common realm,” we are merely abstracted humans who engage along with those who hate Christ in common cultural endeavors and callings.

#2 / #3 — It is true that “as an objective matter, the standards of morality and excellence in the common kingdom are ordinarily the same for believers and unbelievers: they share these standards in common under God’s authority in the covenant with Noah,” but what is not true is that those who are Christ haters recognize and embrace these standards of morality and excellence. I very rarely use the language of a “self evident” truth, but I would think that VanDrunen would recognize that the very issue he insists Christians have in common with those who hate Christ are the issues that our current culture is tearing itself apart fighting over. The morality of the Ten Billion dollar a year porn industry and its standard for “excellence,” is quite a different morality and quite a different “excellent” than most Christian humans living in his common realm. The morality and excellence of outcome based education in the government schools is quite a different morality and excellence than most Christian humans have who are living in this common realm.

#4 — In VanDrunen’s common realm world who defines “fair” and what is the standard being used to define “fair?” In VanDrunen’s common realm where exactly do we find these principles grounded in the created order? I thought nature was red in tooth and claw? Does VanDrunen really believe that the evolutionary Capitalist or the Businessman who is seeking to advance the cause of Allah is going to have the same standards of fairness for their business as is the Biblical Christian?

It is difficult to believe at times that the R2K crowd is serious in all of this. Do they really believe that such a social order can be governed by their Christian dualism?

Kinsey & Hefner’s America

The introduction of sexual license among college-age men as a societal norm began in earnest in American Culture in the 1950’s. This project, introduced by Alfred Kinsey and popularized by Hugh Hefner created a market for immodest and sexually adventurous young women, which in turn helped to legitimize the idea of female promiscuity. In the 1960’s, once immodesty and promiscuity had become acceptable for some women, the pressure increased for all women to adopt these behaviors in competing for the attention of men. This was especially true of the youngest of marriage-age women of that generation, whose personal morals and values had been influenced by a decade of sex-saturated pop culture.

The wholesale entrance of women into the world of sexual ‘freedom’ created a number of societal demands; the “liberation” of women from Christian expectations about marriage and child-rearing through a feminist political movement (enter Better Friedan and “The Feminine Mystique” — 1963, enter NOW formed in 1966), contraception on demand w/ Griswold vs. Connecticut – 1966, abortion on demand w/ Roe vs. Wade -1973, and finally through ‘no-fault’ divorce beginning in the early 1970’s.

All of this in turn has brought us to the “gaying” of America. Once Christian heterosexuality and family life was obliterated it was a small step to normalize Sodomy. If there were no standards that needed to be attended to for sexual norms among heterosexuals or no standards that needed to be attended to for family life then who was to say that Sodomy was an aberration?

As an example, though perhaps on the face of it, it is counter intuitive to assert, Playboy has served as a tool for gay social engineering. One could make the case that all porn is essentially homosexual because it is in fact created by men for the sexual gratification of other men. That is pretty gay if you think about it.
Further, on a more practical level, the existence of a thriving porn industry serves the ‘gay’ cause by morally corrupting the men who use it, making them less likely to oppose the homosexual agenda on moral grounds and makes them more likely to support public policies which legitimize sexual hedonism of all varieties.

The result of all of this sexual hedonism has been the de-Christianizing of America and the advance of the agenda of the pink triangle army. Census data published in 1998 reveals a fourfold increase in divorce from 1970-1996, while the population of cohabiting couples has more than doubled.

The resultant ripples of destabilization from the sexing of America on American culture has been dramatic. Since the advent of sexing of America in the 1960’s we have seen the escalation of crime (Fatherless homes breed criminals), the proliferation of STD’s, and the escalation of mental illness and chronic substance abuse. These are all the consequences that one might expect of a generation raised in unstable families.

The information for this post was taken from Scott Lively’s “Redeeming the Rainbow,” though I have repackaged the language somewhat.