Roping and Tying the Straying Life

Does anybody else resonate with that? It is so easy to go astray from reality. Specifically with me, it has been in the area of listening to conservative talk radio. Yep. You read correctly.

The basic philosophical problem with conservative media is not that it calls government overspending immoral, detests abortion, insists on citizens taking personal responsibility for their lives, and favors family values. The problem is that without a unifying life principle, all of it falls apart and is impossible to keep. This kind of media still does not look at man as fallen, and in need of restoration to a PERSON, God, through Jesus Christ. It can't do that. It still cannot call one religion superior to all the rest. Still politically incorrect.

Our pastor at church doesn't play that way. Recently he preached on Galatians 1 and highlighted the curse on anyone with any other gospel. He set forth the thought that it is either the Gospel or a curse. Do we get it practically. Do I get it? Everything, yes everything in our experience mitigates against the simple gospel. Even conservatism. Did not the Pharisees prove that?

I believe people's consciences really do have a sense that many of the conservative principles are right. I myself, feel a lot better when I work for my own money rather than having government handouts, for example. But it is possible to be centered on the principles and not the person of Christ.

What all this means is philosophically, in my estimation, is the needed ability not to separate relationships from principles. Principles serve relationships, and are meaningless apart from them. (by the way, I also think children get dysfunctional not because their parents have no rules, but because they are starved for the meaning brought to them by healthy relationship) God gave the law so we could know God, not so that we could simply walk around with lists we rigorously keep.

How then should we evaluate "conservative" media? The answer may have to wait. For my part, I am taking a month-long fast from listening to any media, conservative, liberal, or otherwise. Time to focus on implementing the principles and laying the groundwork for actually doing them in the context of a relationship with Christ and his church.