What's in a name?

There are three things I've seen this morning that have made me cringe at the faulty worldview of society. I'm not saying that my worldview is correct, but the need to run from the problem that humanity has self-diagnosed simply because they can't think up a sufficient answer is worrying. I'm basically saying that what I believe is more correct than the general secular public (the general secular public believing they don't believe anything).

The first thing I saw was a poster on the back of a bus that states: "The Power of Me can tackle bullying." (This isn't right.)

The second thing I saw was a poster on the side of a bus that states: "You can choose to stop abuse." (This is wrong)

And the third things was a newspaper headline that claimed a 5 year old girl had been raped, leading to question about what her life would be like in the future.

The first two made me angry by the blatant attempt at society trying to save itself from self-destruction, while the last one made me utterly frustrated at the general medias need to express more bad news. It's starting to get the better of me. Day after day I read of people being harmed in a variety of unoriginal ways, and equally people offending, and the papers give the usual doom and gloom with not real look at any possible hope. I've had enough. Who, in their right mind and day-to-day reading, decide that the best way of finding out what's going on in the world is to read about more death, assault, abuse, poverty, famine, disease, and general depravity? Equally, who thinks a good way to make money is to fill pages and pages of recycled paper with the same stories as every other week but with names of people and places, and ages, changed?

Society has reached a stand still. Nothing is improving. We have gadgets and gizmo's that make us find out about this non-improvement faster than the week before, but I wouldn't call that an improvement. I'd call that masochistic. I don't mean to rant but it does really grind my gears.

You know what else grinds my gears? The posters on buses that I mentioned.

How can we improve society when 80% of the population have chosen to follow their own "enlightened" path, instead of learning from the past 6000 years of human history and realising something has to change?

As part of Western culture I can't say I'm not to blame, but if there's no realisation that things won't improve by doing things the way they've always been done, then I won't continue to be associated with such a deprived way of life. The trouble with the past 50 years has been the need to include everyone, offend no one, and save everyone from everyone else with protective barriers meaning children won't get the right discipline in their situations, adults won't get the right discipline in their situations, and, if you think that you can't do your job anymore, you can sue your boss. I'm getting to my point. I just seem to be coming across as a profoundly angry man; which I suppose I am.

What you may have come to realise is I believe that all this...boils down to Jesus.

And it's enough with the chit-chat...Jesus is the message that people need to hear. It's the thing that empowers and releases the people from their own depravity. Bullying is never about having to stand up to the person who bullies, the answer to it is that the bully himself interacts with people in a way that he knows works, and keeps him in survival mode. It's that basic. The bully wouldn't act the way he does without good cause that boils down to the fact that, in every case, whether it's bullying which we don't particularly like or lying which we don't think is that bad, or abuse, or murder, it boils down to the fact that the sinner (the person bullying, lying, abusing, or murdering) was first sinned against. It becomes a vicious cycle that is always traceable back to a need to create a survival mode of keeping people at a sufficient distance to remain ourselves.

In reality, to know all this helps no one. To know Jesus came to demonstrate such freedom is much more vital knowledge. What's coming around is the need to realise that the gospel (the good news that Jesus is Lord/King over all things because he was raised from the dead) is the power of God in motion. It's power (not the power of ME) is the thing that will be able to effectively fight bullying or abuse because it doesn't just bring freedom to the bullied and abused, but it also brings reconciliation between the bully and the bullied. This is something that has been decided unthinkable, but it is the power and wisdom of Yahweh, not some human concept.

To finish with a story, a girl (let's call her Jane) was sharing something in a school assembly. She spent a short 15 minutes in front of 200 or so teenagers telling them the most important thing for them to was 'follow your heart.' It was a passionate message, and the children were clapping her and thinking, 'this is a good message, I like this philosophy.'

Afterward a friend who had come to listen to her share asked her a simple question. 'Would you have said the same thing if you'd know that a young Hitler was sitting in the audience? Or a young Staling, or Genghis Khan?'

She replied, 'I'd never thought of that.' As shock filled her face she realised the mistake she'd made. She had assumed that the human heart is primarily a source of good. Which it isn't really.

The trouble with telling people that 'the power of ME can tackle bullying' is that there will be a portion of people who will interpret the message to think that, with enough will power, they can reverse the roles and become the bully.

I'll leave it there I think.