Posted on 08/19/2013 1:21:12 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
I've got what I believe to be a spiritual insight into the "victimidation" phenomenon which is behind a lot of modern American political liberals' folly. I share it for discussion and refinement.
I'd like to go into what I believe is the history here. Liberalism as we know it today began as a movement within Christianity to pay special attention to its call (and the call of the Judaic faith that led up to it) to raise up people who were down and out. At that time there was still a robust faith in God, and that He would glorify Himself by encouraging poor people to let themselves be raised up by seeking to glorify God (and a chief way being gainful work doing something good), while Christians would give the poor a "jump start" on the process by helping them out initially.
OK, fast forward to a time when the sentiment of helping the poor is remembered, but the common faith in God is now being stifled (I am not here treating the ways in which it is stifled, just that it is). Well, without God in people's picture, what happens? Here's what happens, and Romans 1 tells us: idolatry. Because people were created by God to glorify Himself. But when people shut God out of their picture, they don't suddenly lose the need to glorify God. Instead, substitutes take God's place in their picture. And these substitutes are orchestrated by the same serpent that had beguiled man in the garden. The people's loyalty to these substitutes will become fierce. But rather than being filled with the goodness that only God can generate, "those who worship them are like them."
Well, what has happened, I believe, is that the poor people have now become idols. By sleight of a demonic hand, the Christian impulse to help them out, stripped of the rest of the divine power which God wanted to accompany it, has been perverted into an obsession with the needs of poor people.
I believe this highlights the need to get faith in the Christian God back into the picture. God isn't there to help us glorify ourselves or things about ourselves (not even conservatism, to make a political tweak here). God is there to be directly glorified, not because he needs the ego strokes as though He were another idol owned by Satan, but because He truly is infinitely generous, BOTH in forgiveness AND in provision. When we lift Him up as best we can in this mortal coil, we don't "earn our ticket to Heaven." What we do is to invite Heaven back among ourselves! Then the ultimate journey out of this life loses its uncertainty, dread, and sting. It's like being moved out of the basement of the mansion into its main living quarters.
The ONLY, ONLY way out of this impasse IS THE GOSPEL.... I risk looking manic by using these caps, but forget me if you must but DO NOT FORGET WHAT THE CHRISTIAN GOD WILL DO IF GLORIFIED AGAIN!
Now we do NOT need the help of any secular government agency to do so! Their refusal to go along with the Christian faith is an obstacle, but it's an obstacle fueled by Satan. Satan is a little runt next to Jesus! He will put up opposition but must give way before a military strength love offensive from Heaven, with the warning that we can (in fact will) incur worldly losses in the process. And people are NOT demons in this paradigm. They can cling to demons and in the extreme case will have to be dealt with by moving them aside by good means, but the first preference is to attempt to get them to accept the deliverance of the Lord or at least to consider it worthy enough of respect not to oppose it too militantly.
Will we get our gospel moxie back? I certainly pray so. But it can begin with me and you. Pray and work as best you can for God's glorification in this darksome place, through His works through Jesus Christ. This is the divine fire which, if tended through the glorification of God, will spread and prevail against Satan's sulphurous blazes.
hey
bfl
Victimidation? Nice! How about victimhoodlums?
As for the lefties making the poor their Golden Calf, I’m not too sure. They seem to be treating the poor not as an idol worthy of worshiping, but as an object to be manipulated for their own ends.
If the lefties worship anything, it isn’t the poor, but anyone who has the weird mix of powerhunger and self-destruction, such as obama and anything in howood.
This is true for the athiest left who are playing "compassionate" Christians for fools and useful idiots.
However much of the clergy in mainline protestant churches and Roman Catholic church don't even really believe what their religion teaches.
They ignore all the hard doctrines to swallow and instead see whats left of the church as a nice way to help the poor and get some personal accolades from doing so.
They don't believe in God, and thus worship their own social mission instead.
Bfl
Bfl
I think you have an excellent point here, but I would point out that there is not just one idol here. We have more like a pantheon of them. But they are a significant idol in the picture. Maybe they could be called a fetish rather than an idol, a fetish being more amenable to manipulation than an idol is, but the point is that they become an unhealthy focus of devotion.
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