"Mon Dieu!...What's All That Burning!?"
("Humanism's Final Bow")
"Christianity minus intelligible doctrine is simply unintelligible
doctrine minus Christianity." ----Gordon Clark
******
"In modern-day France, there isn't much religion of any kind-- just
spacious indifference masquerading as tolerance...the assumption that
leisure and gain are what life is all about...a continent drained of its
spiritual inheritance by habit and neglect."--William
Murchison
**********
In the second chapter of the Book of Hebrews, the writer warns the
Church:
"We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have
heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was
binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,
how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" (v.1,2)
The empty churches in France (and most of western Europe) stand as
stark reminders of a culture/civilization that has "drifted away"
from timeless spiritual truth. The undergirding Judeo-Christian concepts of
Repentance, Grace, Humility and need for Redemption have for more than two
centuries now been eroded by the toxic rust of an emasculated faith. During
the Enlightenment, the Goddess of Reason proudly shoved her way onto center
stage of Western Civilization, and the rest...as they say...is 'history'.
Today the French are Left.....speechless. The Proud possessors of a
gutted and bankrupt system.
Their fine talk of "Equality" is found to be profoundly empty
talk. Their notion of "Liberty" has morphed into license ...and "Fraternity"
for the most part is revealed to be a high-sounding but hollow lie.
When a culture cuts the Anchor to its spiritual roots, and sets itself
adrift on the high seas of Humanism and secular current fashion, sooner or
later the rocks will strike the bow....
"Mon Dieu!...What's All That Burning!?"
("Humanism's Final Bow")
We're post-Christian and we're happy
In our Secular Retreat...
Mais non!...What's all that burning?!
What's that smoke-smell in the street?
Mon frere! Put down that gas-bomb!
We're the French who know-it-all!
This is not how we do French Fries...
Torching towns....
Of all the Gaul!
Mon Dieu!...Let's be Enlightened!
We'll convert if you insist...
But please don't chop our heads off,
Or slice hands off at the wrist!
Mon ami... Please!
Take the churches!
(...they were empty anyway!)
In this Modern Age of Reason
There's no reason men should pray.
Ahhh...Foucault, Camus, Derrida !
Triune prophets of The Age;
Father Rousseau had The Vision...
Deconstruction set the stage.
Now The Self we're all applauding;
Man Enlightened heard The Call...
Sweeping out all Bible notions
Of Redemption and The Fall.
Stage Left!
The curtain rises
On a world denying Sin.
In this vacuum of the spirit
Watch as Chaos rushes in!
Stage Left!
The curtain's calling...
Dim the Light and fill the Void!
Goddess Reason stumbles forward
With her understudy....Freud.
Stage Left!
There's Darwin waving,
Smiling meekly in the wings...
His Fat Lady's in the spotlight,
As she clears her throat to sing!
It's a dirge to Western Culture....
Come to France and hear it now!
It's a finish to remember...
Humanism's final bow...
*********
Lord, we left the strait and narrow...
We found leisure suits the flesh.
We chose the Winter Solstice
O'er The Cross and hallowed creche.
Now we're wandering the minefield
In these dark Parisian nights,
Where we sense a Spirit Warfare...
Give us Grace to see The Light!
"Western civilization seems to have contracted spiritual AIDS...We seem
to have caught the disease during the Enlightenment, which closed our eyes
to God."--Peter Kreeft
*******************
"Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God:
sternness to
those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his
kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off." (Romans 11:22)
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