And if so, how?
I’d like to devote this week’s comments to the lead article in this past New York Times Sunday Review section (Feb 6, 2022) article called “Dissenters Trying to Save Evangelicalism” by David Brooks. It was an eye-opening look at problems within the American evangelical movement, highlighting some of the real divisions created in recent times, and asking what can be done?
Problems mentioned in the article include:
–Attitudes about race
–Politics creating disunity within congregations
–Religious leaders unable to practice the sexual standards they preach
–Concepts of rugged masculinity
–Absence of brotherly love
–Celebrity worship
–Lust for power
–Loss of interest in faith among the young
–Faulty religious organization and decision-making processes
–Culture wars based on moral dilemmas
–Learning how to live in a multi-religious society
–Learning how to separate facts from fiction, rumor or spin
–Bringing positive ideals into daily life through action and community service
–Learning about faith in one’s living rooms rather than in churches
How can we escape these dilemmas? Can we create a religion that addresses them all? Who would have the authority to establish it? Or is this something that only God could do?
The most surprising and blessed answer is this: It has already been done for us.
But understanding this requires us to re-calibrate and adjust our thinking in many significant ways. And the easiest and most reliable way to do this is to turn the clock back to 1844—the year we took a wrong turn by looking up when we should have looked east.
If we want to move forward toward a future which avoids all of the problems listed above, we need to make a journey to the East in those days, and discover what some very wise men discovered back then.
To find the whole story:
The Wise Men of the West 