Right-wing media is unpalatable in its assumptions and its bias and yet the mainstream media is becoming increasingly difficult to tolerate as well. From all the talk of 'people of who have babies' and the like to the overwhelmingly materialist assumptions, I find myself having to look elsewhere. Motivated by its political agenda and the corruption of money, FOX consistently lies and manipulates the truth and even the nature of reality. But the mainstream increasingly just relies on false presuppositions and when it comes to health, science, and even sociology, the materialist assumptions dominate - often leading to absurdities.
NPR was never great but twenty years ago (and more) it was a decent news source and a good place to find general coverage of the news that was presented thoughtfully and with a degree of balance. Today, it's completely driven by idealism - not all of which is 'Left-wing' as the Right will argue. When it comes to American foreign policy, the humanitarian imperialism of NPR, the DNC, and other factions like British Labour are in fact leaning strongly to the Right. This is painfully evident when listening to an outlet like the BBC. In fact many of the criticisms I'm offering about NPR also apply to the BBC - but overall I would still say the British outlet is better and to be preferred.
The story linked above about stress and depression connected to gut bacteria (and the larger microbiome) made me groan and not just with physical revulsion. It was only out of morbid fascination that I managed to persevere to the end. Where would this go? It's startling to think through the overall epistemological and ethical implications this materialist and secular humanist worldview produces.
But it is the societal default and in many ways this is equally true in the Church. The real debate is not between a Materialist world and that of an enchanted supernatural one but between two Materialist factions. One operates on the basis of general assumption but is willing to leave some areas ambiguous and open to extra-materialist exploration. In other words though materialism is the default, there are still some valid metaphysical inquiries and the possibility of spiritual life. The other embraces what might be called a Materialist Fundamentalism, viewing all questions of humanity, morals, emotions, relationships, and the like through the materialist lens. And no other possibilities can be tolerated.
While the hard or fundamentalist variety of materialism has been rejected by Evangelicals, nevertheless the milder form continues to affect them and rather than hinder its progress, the popular 'worldview' paradigm has actually facilitated this infiltration and subversion of Christian epistemology. Failing to draw a hard line between the Church and the World (the Two Kingdoms doctrine of the New Testament), worldviewism (especially when combined with Dominionist proclivities) seeks to 'redeem' all facets of society, viewing them as part of the Kingdom. The knowledge of the world is combined with the knowledge of the Church - derived from Scripture, reason, and tradition (despite any 'Biblical' claims). They seek to sanctify or effectively 'baptise' the world's knowledge and appropriate it. Instead what happens is they secularise Christian knowledge and invite the world into the Church to set up shop.
The materialist virus is all too apparent in popular Christian attitudes about things like health and psychology and so-called 'wellness', along with finance-related paradigms, the dynamics of marriage, gender, sex and sexuality, child rearing and of course - ethics.
Sadly questions such as climate science get lumped into this debate - some Evangelicals embracing all of it, while others (on the Right) oppose it and wield the anti-materialist/anti-secular sword. And yet they too are disingenuous as their talking points are often not derived from Scripture or carefully thought out principles but from think-tanks and lobbyists that are being funded from Wall Street and other corporate entities that have a financial interest in the politics surrounding these issues.
When these issues come up, I feel myself shutting down as no one seems to be able to think outside the proverbial partisan box. But since we're talking about Materialism, it's not too surprising to watch as growing numbers of Evangelicals are starting to cave on not just climate, health, and psychology but even larger issues such as Evolution. In another generation at most Scripture will certainly face a new wave of attack. Some would argue this has already begun.
This NPR piece is both comic and startling. It is undoubtedly true that non-material and spiritual realities can affect nature and individual physiology. Stress is not a thing that can be found in the cells or neurons and yet it's treated as such. It's subjective, and people deal with it in different ways. The materialist implication here is that gut health will not just be an indicator of how 'stressed' or 'depressed' someone is but it implies a kind of reciprocity - medicate the gut and the person will be less stressed or depressed. This represents a rejection of Christian anthropology and certainly Biblical teachings regarding sin and faith.
I don't need to even wonder if Evangelicals would accept such a premise as they already have. Just take your happy pill and all will be well. Unthinkable only a generation or so ago, Christians today fully embrace the spectrum of psychosomatic disorders and the idea that even believers should be 'medicated' for such. In fact I remember twenty years ago (when this was still controversial) listening to Christian radio and hearing experts, pastors, and others urge believers to leave their church if the leadership was not amenable to psychology and psychotropic medications. There was still some resistance at the time - a negligible minority today.
At this point there's no longer any rationale for condemning drunkenness or other forms of drug use - no wonder they are often erroneously referred to as attempts at 'self-medication'. The issue no longer surrounds escapism through an altered state but simply whether it's right to engage in this behaviour apart from a doctor's care and a formal prescription.
Evangelicals can claim the Bible as their authority but given their acculturation it's clear to all that in a growing number of fields of human experience, the Scriptures are in fact insufficient and as such they turn more and more to the world. The Scriptures in fact do not address many of these areas in terms of society at large but instead teach us as Christians how to live and act vis-à-vis the world. In their zeal to expand the scope of Scriptural utility beyond the Covenant and revelation of Redemption, they have in fact secularized it - and once again, the result is the world has invaded and set up shop in the Church.
The atheistic assumptions in this report are palpable and sadly the Evangelical response (if any) will resort to another poisoned salve - that of psychology and the language of self-esteem that so dominates CCM and Church pop culture in general.
No one is interested in mortification, repentance, or prayer. The latter is paid lip service at best.
If stress and depression are just chemical imbalances it follows that happiness, peace, and things like love, affection, and familial attachment are just chemical reactions as well, words and concepts we use to describe these functions which simply evolved in order to help the animal species known as humans survive. As mankind evolves, many of these concepts can be tweaked or dispensed with altogether.
Make no mistake this is a new religion. It has been on the scene since ancient times in Greece and India, but it became a viable force three centuries ago with the rise of the Enlightenment - which in some ways was a secularisation project and in another sense was a revival and re-casting of ancient (mostly secular) philosophy. Once again, the cultural battle (which I'll momentarily assume for the sake of argument) was not lost in the 1960's but in the 17th and 18th centuries. Focusing on events from recent decades is like trying to figure out what size bandage is needed for an ulcerating wound that is cancerous and rooted in the bone and organs.
My concern is not for Western Culture which has never been Christian but for the Church which has (thanks to its many celebrated leaders who were and are wolves in sheep's clothing) opened the floodgates to the world and the nihilistic horrors of Materialist thought.
In the new religion, mankind is merely an unremarkable animal, a grouping of cells and microbes that have no meaning. The world has no meaning. Right and wrong are just social conventions developed on an ad hoc basis. Relationships are convenient fictions that do not extend beyond (maybe) some shared DNA and subjective instinct developed as an evolutionary mechanism. It's a philosophy that no one really truly believes nor can live by. When they love their children, appreciate a sunset, or enjoy art - they functionally deny the philosophy they espouse. Love and beauty are just evolutionary (and thus transitory) responses to stimuli, learned or habitual mechanisms for the furtherance of the species. They are truly nothing.
There is something poetic in the fact that these people are so debased and degraded that they're left to studying their own feces in hope of fixing man's problems. Mankind is so broken by sin that they're reduced to studying human waste in search of hope. I was thinking of this article today when I had my septic tank lid off. I was not inspired or driven to find meaning in what is clearly waste and a font of debased and disease-ridden life.
Satan rejoices in the destruction of the imago dei - the image of God. We see this in the way people destroy their bodies with piercings, tattoos, drugs, and much else. This is but another way in which this is manifest. It's like people are reduced to rolling around in a cesspool trying to find some kind of meaning in it all. There's no other place to look.
Is this not but a new and yet rather base way of reading tea leaves?
Again, this is not a philosophy that is able to be lived and the fact that society clings to concepts like good and evil also testify to this. Even in the debauchery and vomit that is modern Western society there is a still a concept of the 'innocent' which does not exist in the animal world. Is this borrowed Christian capital as some would argue? Maybe, maybe not. I think for all its faults and shortcomings, Natural Law teaches something of this as even pagans have such concepts. Materialism will bring the world to the brink of destruction. If it survives, a new religion will emerge. If we reach that point, Christianity will undergo a great trial and necessarily reconstitution - and hopefully repristination. However, I wonder if we will in fact reach that point.
Even so, come Lord Jesus
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