There has settled upon our Culture ecclesiological and sociological, that which can only be designated as a Strange Madness. This is bizarre in itself since madness is frequently associated with rage or frenzied behavior but in the times that we have been given our madness is perfectly ‘rational,’ and so attended with calmness and certain aplomb extraordinaire. We are not just affected with madness but we are mad and proud of it. Like the Emperor who has no clothes we are impressed with how beautiful our madness wears.
The evidence for madness is ubiquitous. The fact that we can’t or don’t recognize it only testifies that we ourselves have gotten used to the Looney bin of our times and so likewise are infected with madness. Remember, on the island of the insane only the sane are considered insane.Ours is rapidly becoming the island of the insane. In no particular order I enter in the following evidence for the sheer strange madness in which we find ourselves partakers. Madness displays itself in the million plus children our mad culture offers up to our Moloch gods of convenience and affordablity. We have read of our children put through the abortion fires in order to retain a desired comfort level and now smitten by the prevalent strange madness whom of us have wept for both their lost life and our lost innocence and ours?
Every year millions of parents turn their precious 5 year olds over to strangers driving long yellow cylindrical means of transportation crammed full with other disease carrying miscreants of varying ages and dysfunctional backgrounds who are going to introduce their 5 year olds to the most flowery language and the most vile habits. The parents who are involved in this strange madness calmly wave goodbye to their children convinced that they are doing the only sane thing. Only a mad person would think that turning their 5 year old over to perfect strangers would be a sane thing to do. From there their 5 year olds are shipped off to our culturally sophisticated and refined concentration camps euphemistically referred to as schools. There Johnny and Susie will begin the long process of being catechized into a belief system that more often then not is just the opposite of what Johnny and Susie’s folks confess to be true. But the oddness of this doesn’t matter since the strange madness has a firm grip.
Another evidence of the strange madness that has descended on us like a shroud is how we drug our children. Since 1990 the production of Ritalin is up 700% and some studies suggest that as many as 20% of America’s school children are popping Ritalin like an earlier generation of children popped sugar candy from the Pez dispenser. Studies likewise suggest that 3 to 4 times as many little boys are popping pills as their little girl counterparts. Do the math and figure out where that puts the percentage for little boys. Nobody knows for sure what popping Ritalin long-term does to a child and yet here we are pushing pills like they were condoms. Madness I tell you …. only madness accounts for this. Now consider on top of this that none of this snuck up on anybody. We are mad in the face of the warnings of guys like Aldous Huxley who told us all about Ritalin (Soma) over 50 years ago and yet we plunge calmly head first into our madness.
Another piece of evidence is how we have allowed ourselves to be dumbed down. We live among a people who find Dr. Phil to be insightful and who listen to John Tesh who promises to give us “intelligence for our lives.” We have become strangers to all things literary choosing instead to saturate ourselves in “reality TV.” We are captivated and mesmerized by the shallow and vapid speeches of Barack Obama while we feverishly pass e-mails to one another that he wants the old coke song to be our National Anthem. We don’t read books. We don’t listen to lectures. We don’t listen to a piece of music that lasts more then 4 minutes. We are so stupid that we can’t even convince ourselves that killing an alive person in the womb is murder.
More evidence? The one institution that is supposed to be the warning beacon against madness is itself mad beyond healing. The visible Church is mad. While the Church should be raising the prophetic voice against the omnipresent madness she is busy figuring out how to best provide the circuses necessary to keep the madness amused. There was a time when the Church was more interested in exposing the madness instead of making people comfortable in and with it. No more. The Church is more interested in learning the techniques of appealing to madness. The Church surveys groups of mad people to find out what the mad people want and then it gives it to them in spades. What else can this be but madness? The Church has forgotten her Desert God and in her strange madness has introduced a seeker sensitive, user friendly Baal. It is madness I tell you … madness.
More evidence of madness in the Church is the ministerial corps. Ministers are always supposed to be one part desert prophet. They are to be more comfortable in Camel hair shirts then Brooks Brothers suits and their hard diet of locust and honey bespeaks the hard truth they are called to speak. There has always been in them the angularity of the God they serve. Unfortunately though the strange madness that we live in has shattered all that. Ministers are largely one part Madonna, one part Bill Gates, one part “stand up comic”, and one part Joel Osteen. They, of all people, are the best adjusted to the mad times we live in. Where is the weeping prophet pastor? Where is the prophet pastor brokenheartedly pronouncing woe on this madness? Where is the prophet pastor who wears himself out beseeching God in His wrath to remember mercy? I fear that kind of pastor has been amalgamated and castrated by the strange madness. Is he no more?
Madness reigns. Where shall we stop? Is it sane to work six months of the year for the Federal Government to support it in taxation as it actively seeks to destroy the foundations upon which this country was based? Foundations some of us still believe. Is it sane to gather 15 and 16 year old boys and girls into one small classroom and begin to give them the details of sex? Is it sane for Fortune 500 companies to gather their employees together to indoctrinate them with politically correct sensitivity training? Is it sane for the Universities to orient their incoming freshman with radical Feminism and Buggery? Is it sane for Churches to conduct inter-religious faith services so everyone can pray to the same “god”? Is it sane for Christians to support exporting a secular humanism Empire while that same Empire wants to destroy their faith? Is it sane to support political parties and their candidates who by their actions and policies have shown themselves desirous of wanting to destroy Christianity?
No, none of it is sane and yet it is accepted … accepted calmly, and rationally as if it is all the most normal thing in the world and if anybody rises to scream ruddy murder about the strange madness of it all it is that person who is fitted and sized for a straight jacket.
What are we to do? If those of us who see the madness don’t find a way to cope we will ourselves eventually go mad. Even with coping mechanisms though there is no doubt that we will not be able to avoid at least a touch of legitimate madness. Why should anyone expect to retain his or her sanity when constantly exposed to this strange madness? Given the times it would be most unhealthy to stay completely sane. So … What are we to do?
Well we could follow the great satirist of recent times. Men like Mencken, Muggeridge and Chesterton made a living out of skewering the madness they were gifted to see. We could insulate ourselves somewhat from the times by mocking the madness. Secondly, we could view ourselves as moviegoers who are laughing at the incredible irony and unintended satire that permeate our times. By doing so we make it all the madness somewhat objective to us and are able to convince ourselves that like a movie it isn’t really true. I think some of this is necessary in order to cope. If one can’t laugh at the tragedy of it all one will die brokenhearted. Thirdly, we must give God no rest. We must pray and when we are done we must pray more. We must be confident in light of this madness that our God reigns. All of this madness is in one way or another serving His purposes. If I were not confident of that and if I were not confident of His ability to bring Reformation and Awakening I could not avoid genuine honest to goodness madness since it is but a short step from broken heartedness to madness.
we must give God no rest. We must pray and when we are done we must pray more. We must be confident in light of this madness that our God reigns. All of this madness is in one way or another serving His purposes. If I were not confident of that and if I were not confident of His ability to bring Reformation and Awakening I could not avoid genuine honest to goodness madness since it is but a short step from broken heartedness to madness.
Amen