Docile Pupils of The System Rebelling Against It

In speaking of the radical students of the 1960's, Ayn Rand once said:

"Such are the products of modern philosophy. They are the type of students who are too intelligent not to see the logical consequences of the theories they have been taught--but not intelligent nor independent enough to see through the theories and reject them. So they scream their defiance against 'The System,' not realizing that they are its most consistently docile pupils, that theirs is a rebellion against the status quo by its archetypes, against the intellectual 'Establishment' by its robots who have swallowed up every shopworn premise of the 'liberals' of the 1930's"

Counter Culture and The Dust of Death

In the early 70's, Christian Os Guinness published a tome entitled "the Dust of Death". On the back cover it says "With the dust of death slowly settling over all of Western culture, Os Guinness charts the journey of of a generation--out from the technological wasteland and into the Promised Land of radical politics, Eastern religion, psychedelic drugs and the occult. Rejecting both the technological society and the counter culture, he calls clearly for a Third Way".

To be properly digested, this nearly 400 page volume needs to be read from cover to cover.

In commenting on how Christians are to understand supernaturalism and mysticism, Guiness states: "..there are for the Christian two supernatural areas. The first is a genuine experience of God and the second is an experience of the occult powers, the devil and evil spirits. While both are real and supernatural, only the former is legitimate; the latter is real but wrong. Understanding this, we can see that for the Christian there are still two legitimate mystical experiences. The first is natural mysticism including nature mysticism and aesthetic mysticism; the second is supernatural mysticism, a genuine experience of God. Both are legitimate forms of mysticism, but it is common error to mistake the natural mysticism for the supernatural and give it connotations that are spiritual...It can not be stressed too strongly, especially in the climate of a growing and dangerous vogue for contentless religious experience, that the mystical experience is only a part of the Christians total experience."

Then, continuing, Os Guinness responds to Timothy Leary's charge that "Every religion in world history was founded on the basis of some flipped-out visionary trip". Guinness responds by saying that "the Christian's supernatural experience of God is always in terms of truth. This judgement runs counter to much current theology let alone mysticism..There was a content to [Apostle Paul's] experience. Paul did an about-face and headed in a direction totally antithetical to that in which he had been traveling before. Clearly his was no undefined experience...Paul mentions with fascinating attention to detail that Jesus had spoken to him 'in the Jewish language'...the biblical account clearly indicates an experience that was mystical; much of it was beyond words. But it was also personal and propositional."

The Christian worldview embraces the reality of the supernatural, but at the same time the Christian message is not centered around a "trip". Christianity, as Guinness clearly expounds, is not contentless mysticism, but embraces mystical elements in a proper perspective grounded in truth and reality, with personal and propositional revelation. This, when rightly understood, provides a robust answers to the dillemas faced by the rise (and fall) of the 60's counterculture and psychedelic movement. The "trip" did not provide answers, it only raised more questions and left its adherents without a solid base to stand on. Unfortunately, many times modernist Christians have done no better, only offering yet another 'trip' (ie. religion bathed in mysticism without any sort of concept of personal and propositional revelation). Humanity does not hunger for another "trip" bathed in religious language (contentless religion), but it needs to be presented the gospel, and a gospel with propositional content.

Guinness ends the book in a powerfuly way, saying:

"The present erosion of Christian culture means the removal of the last restraining influence of the Reformation. The striptease of humanism is simply the logic of the Renaissance held in check by the Reformation for four centures but now exposed in all the extremes of its consquences. If the last twenty-five years presuppose the tensions and questions of preceding centuries, it is little wonder that the counter culture [of the 60's] is not equal to its task. Christianity has proved itself a genuine counter culture once before. It is the hour for the Third Race once again.

The second reaction will be from thoes who will say, How come? All this is very well in theory, but how can it be translated into action? As Bertrant Russell remarked in one of his more tolerant moods, 'The Christian principle, _Love your enemies_ is good...There is nothing to be said against it except that it is too difficult for most of us to practice sincerely.' His emphasis was not strong enough. The Christian life is not juts difficult for man; it is impossible. But it is exactly here that humanism leaves off and Christianity begins.

That is also why this uniquely 'impossible' faith--with a God who is, with an Incarnation that is earthy and historical, with a salvation that is at cross-purposes with human nature, with a Resurrection that blasts apart the finality of death--is able to provide an alternative to the sifting, settling dust of death and through a new birth open the way to life."

This book (and the citations I give here) are definately not interesting to everyone. However, to anyone who, from a Christian perspective, wants to analyize where we (as a civillization) are right now, we need to understand some of these concepts. The 60's counter culture has had a large impact on where our society is at right now. When correctly understood, the counter culture should be seen to have been responding to REAL problems (injustice, violence, unchecked rationalism, materialism, 'plastic' culture, ossified traditionalism, etc.), however the response was launched from a WRONG basis (they provided no, or at least very few satisfactory answers to the problems they saw). We are left with the shadows of that turbulent era. Do we understand it? Are we seeking to respond to the dilemas that are facing our society in 2006? Are we prepared to communicate the gospel faithfully AND understandibly to those we rub shoulders with?

Personal Peace & Affluence - Part Two

In the last post, I outlined the problems with an unrestrained/unprincipled pursuit of personal peace and affluence. This is absolutely not a simplistic critique of wealth. In fact, in many cases, the middle class of our Western society has proportionally been more surrendered to the vice of excessive reliance on personal peace and affluence than the upper strata of society. For most of the middle class, there is the ability to pursue the "good life" of personal peace and affluence to an extent that can match that of the wealthy in the basics, if not in all the extravagent details.

The answer does not lie in forsaking wealth or private possesions, although some may find that this as the only way they can sever its grasp on them. It is primarily a heart issue, and lies in the depths of our behavior and attitudes. A patch-work solution will not work.

Let's look at a real life example. As the 1960's approached, there was a great deal of excitement. After surviving economic depression and two world wars, North America was ready to bounce back. Great hope was placed in the educational and commercial institutions of the world.

However, the youth of the time began to see a great stench in society and they reacted to it, to the chagrin of their "old fashioned" parents. It was not crime, or drugs, or war (the things usually seen as detrimental to society). It was a different sort of "menace", one which was wrapped in the optimism of the day. It was preceisely that part of the older generation had made "personal peace and prosperity" their idol. In a sense it seemed like it could be justified. Society came out of a difficult period of wars and hardships. It was time to start living the "good life". However, this came at an expense. The people that idolized the "good life" soon fell into a few different pitfalls 1) The society/culture became very plastic/artificial with little compassion. 2) The inordinate desire for a personal peace and affluence often either made Truth a second-rate side-show or completely annihilated it. 3) The supposed Christian and "conservative" values were often just a remnant of the past and a vain empty shell that had no deep grounding in a true Christan worldview. While there was some pretense of a conviction that transcended personal peace in affluence, in many cases that conviction was all but dead.

The generation which brought about the 60's counterculture often detected the hypocracy, inconsistencies, and double standards in their parent's generation. They saw a lot of materialism. Often their parents and teachers gave them this answer to the meaning of life: "Study hard. Work hard. Suceed". The kids rightly contested that there must be something more to life. They saw thats ome of their parents religious and societal standards, while strict, were often a "pie in the sky" sort of thing without a real grounding, mere empty shells that IN PRACTICE were only as good as long as they didn't interfere with the push towards personal peace and prosperity. They wanted something better, but unfortunately they themselves didn't have a sufficient worldview grounding for that either. The flower children of the 60s did construct a culture which did have a few positive aspects which were less materialistic and more thoughtful. However, because of a lack of grounding or durable standard by which to correct the previous generations issues, the 60s movement, in general, merely took the same wrong attitudes that many of their parents had and imported them into a new cultural context and a new insufficient worldview. This was a recipe for disaster and made their "solution" less than a real solution.

What is the solution, then? How do we embrace the rightful desire to pursue personal peace and prosperity, while at the same time maintaining a balance which keeps the greater values intact and restraints this pursuit so it does not turn into idolatry? What principles do the Bible give which gives us critical instruction as to how this balance works? That will be the topic of the next and final part.