Moral Issues

Christian Life Lived in the Midst of Enemies

Christian Life Lived in the Midst of Enemies“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.

‘The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?’ (Martin Luther).” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Have the Courage to Be Fools for Christ

Have the Courage to Be Fools for Christ - Justice Antonin Scalia “God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools…and He has not been disappointed. Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ’s sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world. If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.” ~ Justice Antonin Scalia

God is Good and Goodness is Divine

God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.by Chris Banescu –

Most of recorded human history points to the reality of the Moral Law, written in our hearts, that governs the affairs of men. Since the beginning of time mankind has recognized (more definitively and clearly in some ages and civilizations than others) that universal concepts of right and wrong and good and evil do in fact exist.

We acknowledge this timeless truth every time we judge whether a person’s behavior is just or unjust, right or wrong, or good or evil. We make this determination not by claiming that a specific act is only “good” if we subjectively like and agree with it, but rather by comparing it with an actual standard of good and evil. Such an evaluation is logical only if these standards are real and absolute, otherwise it would make no sense in labeling anything as evil or good. [Read more…]

Without a Sense of Moral Order Man Cannot Attain Any Order

Without a Sense of Moral Order Man Cannot Attain Any Orderby Chris Banescu –

The enduring and Christ-centered wisdom of Malcolm Muggeridge reminds us why the world around us is such a big mess, especially in the West. The main source of our troubles is the loss of our moral order — anchored in and supported by God — without which no other order can be attained.

“It’s good and evil after all that provide the theme of the drama of our mortal existence. In this sense you might capture them [enlighten them] with the positive and negative points that generate an electric current. Transpose the points and the current fails, the lights go out, darkness falls and all is confusion.

What I wish to put to you here is that the darkness falling on our civilization is likewise due to a transposition of good and evil. In other words, that we are suffering not from an energy crisis or an over-population crisis or an unemployment crisis – from none of these ills that are commonly specified. The root cause of trouble is that we have lost our sense of moral order in the universe without which no order whatsoever, economic, social, political is attainable. [Read more…]

A Proper Education Orders the Soul Towards Truth and Beauty and Instills Virtue

Proper Education Orders the Soul Towards Truth and Beauty and Instills Virtueby Chris Banescu –

In an article titled “Let us arise and go home” conservative author and English professor Anthony Esolen eloquently expressed what the ultimate aims of a proper education should be. He writes: “An education that does not order the soul towards truth and beauty, that does not instill the intellectual virtue of seeking the truth, and the practical virtue of putting moral truths in action, is no education at all. It is not fit for a human being. It may be fit for a robot, or a beast, or a devil.” His truthful insights explain a great deal about what has gone wrong without education in the West and especially in America in the last several decades.

So how can we reinforce these timeless and essential principles in the education of a child. “How do you build up the soul of a child?”, asks Esolen. It’s quite simple. Everyone has access to great literature. “That is what great literature and the arts are for. They are for everyone. You can judge a school by its syllabi, or the books in the library, or the poems and the songs the students know and love. Every child should go down to Mordor with Frodo and Sam, or sit atop the mizzen with Jim Hawkins, or float down the river with the worthy Mole and Rat, or ride with Paul Revere, [Read more…]

Eliminating the Notion of God Leads Man to Tyranny, Insanity, and Carnality

Malcolm Muggeridgeby Chris Banescu –

The renowned journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, in his “The Great Liberal Death Wish” article observed the universal pattern of tyranny, delusion, and depravity that follows once man rejects God and embraces godless materialism in all its forms (socialism, communism, progressivism, etc.).

His insights are as valid today as they were in 1979 when he first published it. Looking around the world around us we see the darkness, corruption, insanity, and chaos that accompany man’s rejection of his Creator. As the Psalmist declared “Unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)

“Once you eliminate the notion of a God, a creator, once you eliminate the notion that the creator has a purpose for us, and that life consists essentially in fulfilling that purpose, then you are bound, as Pascal points out, to induce the megalomania of which we’ve seen so many manifestations in our time – in the crazy dictators, as in the lunacies of people who are rich, or who consider themselves to be important or celebrated in the western world. [Read more…]