Category: society

Posted in biblical worldview, immorality, judge not, morality, putnam, society

The plague of non-judgmentalism

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I saw an essay by Gene Veith, titled “Class, children, & the social costs of nonjudgmentalism.”

The Veith title and the essay itself is based on the work of Robert Putnam, “a very important social scientist”, who has written a new book called Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. It deals in part with what happens to a society that refuses to hold anyone else to a moral standard. The collapse of moral standards (in the face of unwillingness to call out bad behavior and set expectations for good behavior) is causing a crisis among families. We do feel sympathy for latchkey kids, abused kids, families split, drug culture ruining lives. NY Times columnist David Brooks opined about “Our Kids”,

But it’s increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It’s not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it’s norms. The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.

Reintroducing norms will require, first, a moral vocabulary. These norms weren’t destroyed because of people with bad values. They were destroyed by a plague of nonjudgmentalism, which refused to assert that one way of behaving was better than another. People got out of the habit of setting standards or understanding how they were set.

I am familiar with Putnam’s work, most notably his 2001 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

I referenced Putnam’s earlier work from Bowling Alone in a blog essay, Churching Alone: The Collapse of American Churches. I’d written about the lack of a thriving biblical presence in communities, the Christian parallel to what Putnam had been saying about civic responsibility in his 2001 book. However, his new book “Our Kids” actually touches on the Christian relativism, ‘judge not’ mentality problem even more insightfully, albeit unknowingly. There IS a cost to relativism that affects both the secular society AND the biblical church. Let’s see from the Bible what the cost to the church is when it sinks into ‘non-judgmentalism.’

We see that clearly in the letter from Jesus to the Church at Thyatira. The church there had refused to set moral, biblical standards. Jesus was angry that they were tolerating sin. They were too tolerant, just like the ‘judge not!’ crowd screeches at the Christian who attempts to set biblical standards of morality. We all know Jesus did not mean for that to become a cover for their own immoral behavior.

The church at Thyatira was commended for being loving, faithful, having a service-oriented attitude, and for their perseverance. They were the only church to be so heartily praised in such a wide range of attitudes. (Revelation 2:18-19)

The problem at Thyatira was that they were tolerating a false prophetess. They were tolerant. This false prophetess, metaphorically named Jezebel, was declared to be leading the Thyatirans to idolatry, apostasy and infidelity (of the Lord).

Being busy, serving, loving, and persevering is not enough, if sin is allowed to take hold. The situation was so serious, Jesus promised that unless the Jezebel false prophetess repented and her followers with her, He would —

–throw her onto a sickbed,
–and those who commit adultery with her He will throw into great tribulation,
–and He will strike her children dead. (Revelation 2:20-23)

THAT is how seriously Jesus takes sin in the church. Tolerant love is no love at all, if it includes allowing false wolves to lead people away from Jesus.

Within the church, failure to set a moral standard based on His word brings death, either through the wages of sin or via direct intervention from Jesus. Outside the church, even secular people wonder about the long-term effects of a general lack of agreed-upon moral standards, as Mr Brooks stated in his NY Times article here,

People sometimes wonder why I’ve taken this column in a spiritual and moral direction of late. It’s in part because we won’t have social repair unless we are more morally articulate, unless we have clearer definitions of how we should be behaving at all levels.

Yet of late, the rapid decline in morality has occurred precisely because of a general refusal- in the church and out- to define morality and to stick by the standards. It must be acknowledged that in order to function effectively, a society needs to have moral standards, and these standards need to be agreed upon. Where does on obtain a moral standard? They ALL originally came from God.

At no time in any epoch and at no place upon the earth did all people ever agree on the truth…but enough people agreed so that the false ones felt pressure to conform at least superficially to the moral standards the bulk of society lived out. Now, since no one agrees even upon the basics, such as ‘what is marriage?’, it’s a free-for-all.

Yes, failure to “judge” immoral behavior in the church angers Jesus. That was a problem in Corinth. Paul charged the Corinthians for failing to specifically articulate a moral standard about incest and adultery. A man had his father’s wife, and all the church AND the pagans knew it. (1 Corinthians 5:1). The Corinthians ‘did not judge,’ and the problem grew scandalous and destroyed their witness. Failure to live by Christian boundaries then leaks over into the world, where even the peer pressure to even pretend to be moral declines and eventually evaporates. Pretty soon, the tipping point is reached where no one will stand up for any standard at all, and all is deemed good and acceptable.

We are called to be a holy people so as to be pure for Jesus and to be an example to the people of the world. (Romans 11:13-16; 1 Corinthians 10:33). A young Christian lady who remains a virgin is committing a moral act, all the brighter for the darkness that surrounds her. A married Christian man who doesn’t look at porn, or tell dirty jokes at work, is committing a moral act. Couples who stay together and don’t divorce are performing a radical, moral act.

In a healthy society, social morality is comparatively “thick.” One consequence of the cultural revolution of the 1960s was a weakening, a thinning out, of social morality. The result is that the standards of right and wrong are reduced to the minimalist test of whether a particular action is legal. This is an unthinkable degradation of standards from the America of earlier periods, when society assumed that an individual’s moral responsibilities encompassed far more than merely observing the law. The decline in social morality and the rise of legalism are illustrated in Figure 1.2 below. (Source)

Christians who speak out against sins like fornication, homosexuality, divorce, gossip, anger, impetuousness, fiscal irresponsibility … are doing Christ’s work by pointing to His moral lines He has set. Further, as Putnam said, we need a moral vocabulary. In the Christian world, call sin as sin, not a mistake, or a stumble. It is up to us to set the lines and stay behind them, because we know where they are.

–we have an absolute line, it does not move nor does it change with the culture. Share it.
–call sin what it is: sin. Use the word.
–call it out in the church. When Ananias and Sapphira were killed by Jesus on the spot for being hypocrites and liars, all who heard of it feared greatly. The church grew. (Acts 5:1-10, Acts 6:1). Paul opposed Peter to his face. (Galatians 2:11). Peter called out Simon the magician and exhorted him to repent. (Acts 8:20).
–live morally in the world. We are meant to be the Light in the world, our own sin and non-judgmental tolerance doesn’t help anyone. Tolerating sin dims our Light.

Non-judgmentalism has a cost. Yes, we are living in a time that is pretty bad, morally speaking. Perhaps even worse than the well known immorality of the Corinthians lived among. Pastor Phil Johnson thinks so. I do too.

Again, as Mr Brooks said in his review of Putnam’s book,

The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens…They were destroyed by a plague of nonjudgmentalism, which refused to assert that one way of behaving was better than another.


My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;

 Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
10 for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

(Proverbs 2:1-2, 9-10)

Posted in biblical worldview, immorality, judge not, morality, putnam, society

The plague of non-judgmentalism

Posted on by elizabethprata

Interesting that yesterday I wrote about the “judge not!” crowd. Today I saw on my twitter stream a new essay by Gene Veith, titled “Class, children, & the social costs of nonjudgmentalism.”

The Veith title and the essay itself is based on the work of Robert Putnam, “a very important social scientist”, who has written a new book called Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. It deals in part with what happens to a society that refuses to hold anyone else to a moral standard. The collapse of moral standards (in the face of unwillingness to call out bad behavior and set expectations for good behavior) is causing a crisis among families. We do feel sympathy for latchkey kids, abused kids, families split, drug culture ruining lives. NY Times columnist David Brooks opined about “Our Kids”,

But it’s increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It’s not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it’s norms. The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.

Reintroducing norms will require, first, a moral vocabulary. These norms weren’t destroyed because of people with bad values. They were destroyed by a plague of nonjudgmentalism, which refused to assert that one way of behaving was better than another. People got out of the habit of setting standards or understanding how they were set.

I am familiar with Putnam’s work, most notably his 2001 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

Six months ago I referenced Putnam’s earlier work from Bowling Alone in a blog essay, Churching Alone: The Collapse of American Churches. I’d written about the lack of a thriving biblical presence in communities, the Christian parallel to what Putnam had been saying about civic responsibility in his 2001 book. However, his new book “Our Kids” actually touches on the Christian relativism, ‘judge not’ mentality problem even more insightfully, albeit unknowingly. There IS a cost to relativism that affects both the secular society AND the biblical church. Let’s see from the bible what the cost to the church is when it sinks into ‘non-judgmentalism.’

We see that clearly in the letter from Jesus to the Church at Thyatira. The church there had refused to set moral, biblical standards. Jesus was angry that they were tolerating sin. They were too tolerant, just like the ‘judge not!’ crowd screeches at the Christian who attempts to set biblical standards of morality. We all know Jesus did not mean for that to become a cover for their own immoral behavior.

The church at Thyatira was commended for being loving, faithful, having a service-oriented attitude, and for their perseverance. They were the only church to be so heartily praised in such a wide range of attitudes and plaudits. (Revelation 2:18-19)

The problem at Thyatira was that they were tolerating a false prophetess. They were tolerant. This false prophetess, metaphorically named Jezebel, was declared to be leading the Thyatirans to idolatry, apostasy and infidelity (of the Lord).

Being busy, serving, loving, and persevering is not enough, if sin is allowed to take hold. The situation was so serious, Jesus promised that unless the Jezebel false prophetess repented and her followers with her, He would —

–throw her onto a sickbed,
–and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation,
–and I will strike her children dead. (Revelation 2:20-23)

THAT is how seriously Jesus takes sin in the church. Tolerant love is no love at all, if it includes allowing false wolves to lead people away from Jesus.

Within the church, failure to set a moral standard based on His word brings death, either through the wages of sin or via direct intervention from Jesus. Outside the church, even secular people wonder about the long-term effects of a general lack of agreed-upon moral standards, as Mr Brooks stated in his NY Times article here,

People sometimes wonder why I’ve taken this column in a spiritual and moral direction of late. It’s in part because we won’t have social repair unless we are more morally articulate, unless we have clearer definitions of how we should be behaving at all levels.

Yet of late, the rapid decline in morality has occurred precisely because of a general refusal- in the church and out- to define morality and to stick by the standards. It must be acknowledged that in order to function effectively, a society needs to have moral standards, and these standards need to be agreed upon. Where does on obtain a moral standard? They ALL originally came from God.

At no time in any epoch and at no place upon the earth did all people ever agree on the truth…but enough people agreed so that the false ones felt pressure to conform at least superficially to the moral standards the bulk of society lived out. Now, since no one agrees even upon the basics, such as ‘what is marriage?’, it’s a free-for-all.

Yes, failure to “judge” immoral behavior in the church angers Jesus. That was a problem in Corinth. Paul charged the Corinthians for failing to specifically articulate a moral standard about incest and adultery. A man had his father’s wife, and all the church AND the pagans knew it. (1 Corinthians 5:1). The Corinthians did ‘not judge,’ and the problem grew scandalous and destroyed their witness. Failure to live by Christian boundaries then leaks over into the world, where even the peer pressure to even pretend to be moral declines and eventually evaporates. Pretty soon, the tipping point is reached where no one will stand up for any standard at all, and all is deemed good and acceptable.

We are called to be a holy people so as to be pure for Jesus and to be an example to the people of the world. (Romans 11:13-16; 1 Corinthians 10:33). A young Christian lady who does not sleep with her boyfriend is committing a moral act, all the brighter for the darkness that surrounds her. A married Christian man who doesn’t look at porn, or tell dirty jokes at work, is committing a moral act. Couples who stay together and do not divorce are performing a radical, moral act.

In a healthy society, social morality is comparatively “thick.” One consequence of the cultural revolution of the 1960s was a weakening, a thinning out, of social morality. The result is that the standards of right and wrong are reduced to the minimalist test of whether a particular action is legal. This is an unthinkable degradation of standards from the America of earlier periods, when society assumed that an individual’s moral responsibilities encompassed far more than merely observing the law. The decline in social morality and the rise of legalism are illustrated in Figure 1.2 below. (Source)

Christians who speak out against sins like fornication, homosexuality, divorce, gossip, anger, impetuousness, fiscal irresponsibility … are doing Christ’s work by pointing to His moral lines He has set. Further, as Putnam said, we need a moral vocabulary. In the Christian world, call sin as sin, not a mistake, or a stumble. It is up to us to set the lines and stay behind them, because we know where they are.

Holly Hunter’s character Jane Craig said to William Hurt’s character Tom Grunick in the movie Broadcast News, when Tom breached ethics and faked a news spot, “You crossed the line!” Grunick responded,

“It’s hard not to cross it–they keep moving the little sucker, don’t they?”

Non-Christians are confused as to what morality is and what a moral life lived out looks like. The takeaway for us is:

–we have an absolute line, it does not move nor does it change with the culture. Share it.
–call sin what it is: sin
–call it out in the church. When Ananias and Sapphira were killed by Jesus on the spot for being hypocrites and liars, all who heard of it feared greatly. The church grew. (Acts 5:1-10, Acts 6:1). Paul opposed Peter to his face. (Galatians 2:11). Peter called out Simon the magician and exhorted him to repent. (Acts 8:20).
–live morally in the world. We are meant to be the Light in the world, our own sin and non-judgmental tolerance doesn’t help anyone. Tolerating sin dims our Light.

Non-judgmentalism has a cost. Yes, we are living in a time that is pretty bad, morally speaking. Perhaps even worse than the well known immorality of the Corinthians lived among. There was a line that even the pagans didn’t cross, that the Corinthians tolerated,

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.” (1 Corinthians 5:1)

I say worse, because it seems that we tolerate that kind of thing pretty well now. We also have the world’s first three-way gay marriage, government approval of three-person genetic babies, polyamorous parenting, and more. Again, as Mr Brooks said in his review of Putnam’s book,

The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens…They were destroyed by a plague of nonjudgmentalism, which refused to assert that one way of behaving was better than another.

Christians, ASSERT. One way of behaving IS better than another, and it’s better because one way of behaving pleases God more than another. We know the line, we know the standards, we have the vocabulary. Do not fall into the pit of non-judgmentalism. Someone’s soul could depend on being honest, clear, and forthright about right and wrong, morality and immorality. His word is the benchmark, the line, the standard of morality and every good thing. See the ‘if-then’ statement of Proverbs-

My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;

 Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
10 for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

(Proverbs 2:1-2, 9-10)

Posted in futile thinking, romans, society

Train Runs Over Couple Having Sex on Tracks

Posted on by elizabethprata

Train Runs Over Couple Having Sex on Tracks
“Local police say a middle-aged couple in central Ukraine was run over by a switcher locomotive while having sex on the tracks. According to the country’s Interior Ministry, the woman died at the location while the man was hospitalized after losing both his legs. The victims’ names were not released, but it was reported that the man was 41 and the woman appeared to by thirtysomething. The ministry cited the surviving victim, who said that he and his girlfriend “failed to overcome their natural passion when walking home… and wanted to experience an extreme sensation near the railroad tracks.”

Pack of motorcyclists chase man in SUV, attack him on upper Manhattan street after fender bender on West Side Highway
“Alexian Lien’s Range Rover was surrounded by several bikers on the West Side Highway on Sunday. One biker apparently cut the driver off and slammed on the brakes just before the SUV bumped his rear tire. But when Lien — who was driving his wife, Rosalyn, and their 2-year-old child — stopped, several bikers began to damage his SUV. Lien fled, striking one biker. But the group caught up to him and pummeled him before cops arrived.”

Cops: Daughter, husband kill mom; dad shoots them
“A two-decade family feud came to a violent end when a man shot dead the two home invaders that killed his wife and son, not knowing the assailants included his long-estranged daughter, authorities said Sunday.”

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:18-21)

THIS is what futile thinking is. This is what it looks like. Dr John MacArthur quoted Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse in his Romans 1:21 sermon and also in his Romans’ commentary–

Barnhouse said,

“Will God give man brains to see these things and will man then fail to exercise his will toward that God? The sorrowful answer is that both these things are true. God will give a man brains to smelt iron and make a hammer head and nails. God will grow a tree and give man strength to cut it down and brains to fashion a hammer handle from its wood. And when man has the hammer and the nails, God will put out His hand and let man drive nails through it and place Him on a cross in the supreme demonstration that men are without excuse.”

When you have a majority of a society rejecting God, and as a result not being able to think straight, there are going to be consequences. There will be evidence of it. When a tiny minority of a society or a culture rejects God, the effects can be dampened by peer pressure, or laws, or hidden from sight. Not so when a majority reject Him, and the noted consequences begin to evidence themselves. Foolish hearts and futile thinking mean people are going to act c.r.a.z.y. And they are. Our God-rejecting society is on a downhill slide in a hellish ride to nowhere, and I cold not be sorrier for the people who reject peace with God and the eternal joy that comes from it.

Posted in facebook, sin, social media, society

Social media is changing child custody disputes, child-support payments, & divorce

Posted on by elizabethprata

I am in the midst of writing three loosely connected blog entries regarding marriage and the family. The first piece looked at marriage through the creation of man and woman and God-ordained society. That piece also contained news of the UK’s new legislation allowing gay marriage. While the ink was still drying, a gay couple sued the Church for refusing to perform their gay wedding even though the legislation promised that churches would not be forced to perform them. So they are making an end run around that and going to court.

The third piece looks at celibacy.

This piece looks at an interesting news article I read in the Providence Journal. We have all read of the ridiculous youths and graduates and young adults losing jobs or not getting jobs because in their partying enthusiasm, they posted one too many photos on their Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Tumblr page and they were fired or disciplined or passed over for the job. But here is a more serious effect that is changing the face of families- and divorces.

The new ‘private eye’ in divorce cases
“There’s a powerful tool, and relative newcomer, at work in Family Court in Rhode Island. It’s social media, and it’s affecting child custody disputes, child-support payments and, in some cases, the distribution of marital assets. There was the father seeking custody of his 3-year-old son who posted a photo of himself standing in a field surrounded by a dozen marijuana plants. “He went down in flames. No pun intended,” lawyer William F. Holt said.”

 “Eighty-one percent of the nation’s top divorce attorneys reported seeing an increase in the number of cases using social networking evidence, according to a 2010 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Facebook led the pack for online divorce evidence, with 66 percent of the lawyers naming it as the main source.”

There’s a Facebook meme that went around, I’m sorry I can’t find it again, that was a poster which said “Thank goodness I did all my stupid stuff before the internet!”

Kevin Colvin, an intern at a bank
told his boss he had to miss work
due to family emergency.
And posted this on his FB page. (source)

There is something funny about that to us over-fifties. But there is something also kind of sad about it too. Because people today, with the internet, are not only doing stupid stuff, but they are deliberately posting photos and comments about it. No one is forcing them to go public with their stupidity. They did the stupid thing and then they broadcast the stupid thing.

What is it with people today? They are simply mental!

Apostasy is growing. This means indeed that people are stupider, more mental, and just plain moronic and crazy. No, I’m not being mean. Romans 1 chronicles the progression of behavior and thinking that captures people as they, or a society, descend deeper into sin.

When people do not honor God, they descend into futile thinking. Verse 21:

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

The word futile in the verse is from Greek, (mataioó) and it means to “become vain or foolish, am perverted”. And the word thinking means “to have self-based confused reasoning”. And then foolish again, means “properly, without comprehension; foolish because incoherent…failing to put facts together, describes a person failing to structure information in a meaningful way, and therefore unable to reach necessary conclusions. This person is illogical because unwilling to use good reason.”

A hemp field in Mongolia.
photo credit: Gregory Jordan via photopin cc

See? They can’t think straight. They refuse to think straight. That is why they do stupid things like break the law to grow marijuana plants, leave their wives, sue for custody of their son, photograph themselves in the pot field, and publish it on the internet. Duh.

The one feeds the other. Selfishness leads to divorce, so does laziness, sense of entitlement, conceit, in other words, all the things that Paul said would happen in the end time.

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

So you have people dishonoring God, becoming foolish and perverted in their thinking, which causes them to do more stupid stuff, which indulges their lusts, which causes them to sink further into depravity and perversion…it is a cycle of rapidly diminishing returns.

I did find it interesting that the article went on to say that it has been the past ten years of technology that has dramatically forced an evolution of family law in RI. KoonsFuller is a Texas Law firm which offers a brief overview of the history of family law:

Divorce is a terrible thing.
photo credit: hebedesign via photopin cc

Family Law History

Family law has undergone a tremendous amount of modification over the past century due to the quickly changing roles identified within American families, the varying definitions of the concept of “family” and the importance of each individual’s rights within the family unit.

 The revolution began in earnest during World War II, when women began to enter the work force en masse. Significantly, women found an avenue that would allow them to assert themselves as separate and independent individuals, and a profound evolution of roles within the family began that continues to this day. The impact was felt from family law to real property law, through civil law and probate law, and continues to have an impact on the development of family law cases and the interpretation of those laws by the entire judicial system.

 In the 1950s and 60s, the number of marriages ending in divorce increased steadily across the nation. In 1969, the Texas Legislature adopted Title 1 of the Texas Family Code, allowing “no-fault” divorce. Divorcing parties no longer had to prove improper conduct or other grounds for dissolving a marriage, and the number of divorcing couples increased even more dramatically.

Stephen Cretney’s work in the book Family Law in the Twentieth Century: A History also affirms that “the law governing family relationships has changed dramatically in the past one hundred years.” And anyone over the age of fifty knows that anecdotal evidence shows an increase in the disintegration of the legal family, of which marriage has always been the entry and divorce rather than death is the increasingly employed exit.

The more that people indulge their lusts the more stupid they will get. The series of verses in Romans 1 shows us this. As they say in business, economics, and politics, there is a ‘law of diminishing returns’. This applies to sin, too. The end result of sin is always death. (Romans 6:23). Look how sin works by applying the principle of diminishing returns. Here, Dr Paul Johnson of Auburn University explains,

photo credit: arbyreed via photopin cc

When increasing amounts of one factor of production are employed in production along with a fixed amount of some other production factor, after some point, the resulting increases in output of product become smaller and smaller.

Dr Johnson uses an example of a small garden plot to illustrate diminishing returns.

A simple example of the workings of the law of diminishing returns comes from gardening. A particular twenty by twenty garden plot will produce a certain number of pounds of tomatoes if the gardener just puts in the recommended number of rows and plants per row, waters them appropriately and keeps the weeds pulled. If the gardener varies this approach by adding a pound of fertilizer to the topsoil, but otherwise does everything the same, he can increase the number of pounds of tomatoes the garden plot yields by quite a bit (notice the amount of land is being held fixed or constant).

If he adds two pounds of fertilizer (rather than just one), probably he can get still more tomatoes per season, but the increase in tomatoes harvested by going from one pound to two pounds of fertilizer is probably smaller than the increase he gets by going from zero pounds to one (diminishing marginal returns). Applying three pounds of fertilizer may still increase the harvest, but perhaps by only a very little bit over the yields available using just two pounds.

Applying four pounds of fertilizer turns out to be overdoing it — the garden yields fewer tomatoes than applying only three pounds because the plants begin to suffer damage from root-burn. And five pounds of fertilizer turns out to kill nearly all the plants before they even flower..

So the sinner can sin more and more but the amount of yield he gets eventually diminishes. At the end the return on your production of sin is death, like the burned roots that simply zap the tomato plants. You’re dead. Ask any recovering alcoholic about this. Ask any sober drug addict about this. Ask any child molester about this. Ask any serial killer about this. OK, maybe not a good idea to approach a serial killer, but you’ve read about the high that these addicted folks get in their preferred sin and how they are always seeking the bigger high, the next high. The same goes for even the “respectable sins”, for example, gossips. The more they gossip the more they want, the more people look to them for the juicy tidbit, the more they seek out the juicy tidbit, the more they gossip….Hedda Hopper made a career out of gossip. The gossip journalists are always looking for the bigger story. Each one has to top the last. As with all sins, there is always the search for the ever elusive satisfaction. People are perpetual sinning machines.

Jesus spoke of the Broad Way and the Narrow Way in Matthew 7:13-14.

 Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

The broad way is the way of sin. The narrow way is the way of holiness. The Broad way is without Jesus. The narrow way is with Jesus. There are only those two ways, nothing else and nothing in between. Anyone on the broad way will stay on the broad way and not make the hop until and unless they repent and Jesus brings them over. The two paths don’t run parallel to each other like the white fog lines on this road.

photo credit: gustaffo89 via photopin cc

The two paths diverge.

God is always working (John 5:17, Romans 8:28). Everything is always in motion. Thus, the believer is always being sanctified. He is always in progress toward the Father in Christ-likeness.

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.  (2 Peter 3:18 )

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

The unbeliever is always progressing downward in sin. They are growing too. Growing worse. The law of diminishing returns shows us that they will always seek after sin in greater amounts. Whether those amounts consist of huge leaps forward on the road or tiny baby steps depends on the person, but they are always progressing downward.

“All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.” (Proverbs 21:26)

 “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” (Titus 3:3)

“while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Timothy 3:13)

I opened with a news story that showed people acting stupidly, seemingly inexplicably. They are changing the face of family law. I showed why people act the way they do. It really isn’t inexplicable, it’s sin. And sin and sinners get worse. If too many sinners get worse in their sin, society as a whole becomes worse. At the end, there is a tipping point and God gives a society over to its lusts. After that another phrase besides the “law of diminishing returns” comes into play:

“Circling the drain.”

If you ever watched bath water drain from a tub, at the end there is just a little bit of water left and it goes around and around the drain before getting sucked down the vortex.

Definition: A medical phrase, “FTD–fixing to die, near extremis, pre-code Medtalk Referring to a patient whose future prospects of life are dim”

The legal article from the Providence Journal above describing our society indicate behavior that clearly shows we have become stupid (futile in our thinking). If marriages are disintegrating at such a rapid pace and through such heinous means as immorality, illicit spying, hatred, and duplicitous technological methods as those … if people are behaving in such a way so profusely that it has changed an entire segment of the legal profession … our society is truly circling the drain.

Lord, come soon!

Posted in sin, society

Naked man strangles dog, Patriotic fortresses being built in Idaho

Posted on by elizabethprata

When you play with fire, you get consumed.

Sin is fire, yet too many people do not understand its deadly effects. The effects of sin in a person devolve that person’s heart, body, and mind, until they are only a vestige of humanity. We are made in God’s image, the flesh is a mere shell surrounding what is real. Sin is a disease, a consuming fire of the flesh. It is a slippery path upon which their foot shall slide in due time (Deuteronomy 32:35). Some have their foot slide earlier than others. Some will traverse the path for a longer while before slipping suddenly. Either way, their foot SHALL slide.

I’d written yesterday about the effect on a society of people who choose the homosexual lifestyle. However the choice to sin will result in all manner of insanity, not just homosexuality. Auguste Tholuck wrote about the ancient Roman and Greek days from a Christian perspective of what sin will produce in a society. His book “Nature and moral Influence of Heathenism” is well known. He wrote, “Heathenism profanes the image of God in man.”

In other words, when one is not in Jesus with the Holy Spirit restraining sin, the image of God in man becomes so unidentifiable as anything Godly that man is eventually consumed, swallowed up. Jonathan Edwards write in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,”

“the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up;”

We know all this, you say. But what does a society look like which has passed the tipping point of sin’s burdens and effects? When, collectively, the people disregard God and go their own way?

In 2009, John MacArthur wrote an essay called “The Character Crisis.” He stated,

“[Romans 1:28-32] describes our culture to the letter, doesn’t it? People today literally entertain themselves with iniquity, heedlessly applauding those who sin most flagrantly. Society today makes celebrities of people who in our grandparents’ generation would have been deemed the most contemptible rogues. Almost everything that used to be considered shameful is now celebrated. We therefore live in a culture where personal character and individual virtue are rapidly evaporating at almost every level. Virtue and infamy have traded places.”

Mass sin makes a society crazy. Like this:

Naked man shot by homeowner after breaking into a Miami home and trying to strangle pet Rottweiler
“A naked intruder was shot in Miami this morning after being found trying to choke a home-owner’s pet Rottweiler.  The property owner shot the man in the leg after discovering him trying to throttle one of his dogs at around 5am, NBCMiami.com reports.  The suspect is being treated in the Jackson Memorial hospital following the incident in the Northwest 2nd Avenue area of the city. … The naked suspect tried to bite the homeowner, police and later hospital workers coming to his assistance.”

Between crazy people everywhere and the government’s unconstitutional interference with us on a grand level, we get this:

Patriotic Group To Build Armed ‘Defensible’ Neighborhood Fortress
“A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty. The group, named Citadel, intends to purchase 2,000 to 3,000 acres for the project in western Idaho.  The community will comprise of 3,500 to 7,000 families of patriotic Americans who “voluntarily choose to live together in accordance with Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of Rightful Liberty.”

You can bet that there are others who have thought of building an enclave, or are even making preparations for such communities. If one group is being reported in the media it means there are likely hundreds of others which are out there but haven’t come to national attention.

Absent a unifying thread of Godly worship, eventually every society splinters into living according to what they believe is right.

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6).

Clarke’s Commentary says, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes – He was his own governor, and what he did he said was right; and, by his cunning and strength, defended his conduct. When a man’s own will, passions, and caprice, are to be made the rule of law, society is in a most perilous and ruinous state.”

The disintegration of the believing Church, which in this case acts as the undershepherd standing in for the judge mentioned in the verse, means there is no ‘magistrate’ to take note of man’s sin, and call him to restrain from it, or punish him for it according to the law of God.

This now means more than ever that every believer is called to do what is right in the face of increasing wrong. We have an opportunity here. A flashlight can be seen in the daylight but is even better seen when it is dark. Each Christian should be pursuing what is excellent, doing what is good, and submitting to the Holy Spirit by walking on the narrow path. Scripture alone tells us what to do. I don’t like that the times have gotten so dark. But I do like that I have an opportunity to appeal to Jesus to make His light in me shine brighter, to be seen in the darkness by those with no hope.

MacArthur closes with this:

“Truly excellent character is actually a reflection of the moral nature of God Himself. [the image of God] For that reason, all virtues are interdependent and closely related. And all of them are the fruit of God’s grace. As you study biblical virtue, may you perceive the true beauty of Christ’s character and desire to see it reproduced in your own life.”

Keep praying for Jesus to come, meanwhile, keep praying for the people of the world so affected by sin.

Posted in fatigue, overwork, rest, society

Overworked Americans are a hazard

Posted on by elizabethprata

I read with interest Michael T. Snyder’s piece a few days ago “Americans are literally being worked to death.” Here is a snippet–

“Are you constantly tired and do you feel incredibly stressed almost all the time? Well, that means that there is a really good chance that you are a typical American worker. Even though our incomes are going down, Americans are spending more time at work than ever before. In fact, U.S. workers spend more time at work than anyone else in the world. But it was not always this way. Back in 1970, the average work week for an American worker was about 35 hours. Today, it is up to 46 hours. But there are other major economies around the globe that are doing just fine without burning their workers out. For example, the average American worker spends 378 more hours working per year than the average German worker does.”

“Sadly, for many Americans work is not even finished once they leave the office. According to one recent survey, the average American worker spends an extra seven hours per week on work tasks such as checking emails and answering phone calls after normal work hours have finished. Other Americans are juggling two or three jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Americans are busier than ever and work is often pushing the other areas of our lives on to the back burner. What this also means is that “family vacations” are becoming increasingly rare in the United States. In fact, Americans spend less days on vacation than anyone else in the industrialized world. While some would applaud our “work ethic”, the truth is that the fact that we are being overworked is having some very serious consequences. In fact, as you will see below, Americans are literally being worked to death.”

For the first time in a while I’m only working 40 hours per week. It is still stressful though, because of a reduction in our staff numbers. So we were told we have to work smarter and stretch. This means we are all taking on more duties, and working in a more rushed fashion than ever before to complete an ever-growing list of tasks during those 8 hours. Add to that a growing bureaucratic regulations that must be attended to and the list of things to accomplish during the day gets quite long.

Many Americans are working two and three jobs, and still, pay has gone down and our money buys less. The treadmill is outpacing us.

I lived on a sailboat for two years. I was a live-aboard cruiser. I learned so many valuable lessons during that time. We didn’t have radar or GPS or self-steering. Me and my husband stood watches through the night in shifts, did our own navigation by old fashioned ways, and when we anchored, (no marina for us) we rowed to shore in a dinghy.

We had some rules though. We understood that with fatigue, comes mistakes. On a sailboat, mistakes could cost us our lives. We respected what our bodies were telling us and we didn’t try to stretch things. We never made a passage that took more than 48 hours, knowing that our bodies would not adjust well to a prolonged two-hour on, two hour sleep rotation very well. When we’re tired, we can’t think as clearly.

Above is a still from the Bob Ballard-NatGeo show Alien Deep, episode “Wrecks of the abyss.” The team was looking for ancient wrecks and their radar showed a hit. They deployed the submersible, and as it approached the radar bump, the crew gasped (and me too) as the camera panned over the deep sea bottom to show a modern yacht, fully intact, resting gently upright, sails still deployed. It was the S/V Miranda out of Heidelberg. Now it is forever sailing the eternal deep, its fate a mystery. My husband and I knew that even in calm weather, one instant of inattention or mistaken decision-making could yield a fate like this for us, too. We were careful and tried not to allow fatigue to set in.

Fatigued driving is akin to drunk driving, it affects our brain so much. “The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says over 55,000 accidents happen each year due to fatigued driving, and they say most of those could be prevented just by getting a good night’s sleep.” (source)

When you’re exhausted you cannot think, react, calculate, decide or do many other cognitive functions as well as when you’re fresh. Add to the normal exhaustion that most parents feel, an extra job or two and you’ve got a fatigue permeating society that affects overall performance.

Let’s say that you’re on the road and you encounter a tired cop, a weary EMT, a fatigued transit conductor, a tired delivery driver, an exhausted bus driver. When people in jobs that affect others are tired, they make mistakes. Their mistakes affect others. They may have a harder time handling tension, stress, anger, or irritations that normally would not affect them.

It is one invisible way that society comes apart: depressed economy leads to overwork leads to fatigue that leads to mistakes that turn violent or deadly. It is one of the threads that stresses a society and overwork and fatigue pulls the thread apart from the seams. We’re all feeling that stress and societal disintegration. We can’t see fatigue, but we see its effects in reduced productivity and high exhaustion rates. Mistakes soon appear, then more and then even more. A wrongly filled out prescription, stepping on the gas instead of the brake, inattentive crossing guard… Think about it. Think about the number of people you depend on each day to make decisions that directly and indirectly affect you and your family. They may be in fact working three jobs and operating on 3 hours’ sleep.

When the Tribulation arrives, people left behind will encounter an already angry, discontent fatigued population ever vying for resources that are becoming scarcer by the day. It will get ugly fast.

I know it is hard now for many of you. But Jesus knows the importance of rest. When He sent the Apostles out on mission, and they returned to report to Jesus of their labors,

“And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.” (Mark 6:31-32).

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” (Psalm 127:1-2)

Our permanent rest is coming soon. Until then, I entreat in as loving a fashion as I can for us all to make wise decisions for yourself and your family that will allow you all some down time, as well as quiet time to worship Him. I hope you all have a good, and restful, weekend.