Thinking about the effects of the prevalant spoiled-child psychology manifested in our national character can be depressing, unless you're reading along with Cindy at Dominion Family. According to Weaver though, we are fast approaching mass psychosis (and that prediction was fifty years ago!) Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences was an effort to diagnose the ills of the age. He offers a remedy based on the right use of man's reason, acceptance of an absolute reality, and the recognition that ideas, like actions, have consequences.
While this book encapsulates many ideas which are dear to my heart, there are ideas more dear to my heart. Those are the ones found in Scripture. And so, today I call on you to read Mark 4:26-29 with me and contemplate this parable in light of Weaver's citizen of Megalopolis who expects redemption to be easy (instantaneous)
pg 113
Here's Mark 4
26 He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man
scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets
up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by
itself the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full
kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to
it, because the harvest has come."
So, while Weaver acknowleges that if all he proposed were couched in spiritual insights, the case would be different, he does not do that. However, I like to think that he would approve of these correlating verses. Jesus's parable from Mark tells us how and where we will find the source of dicipline Weaver mentions in the last sentence of the chapter, pg 128.
I hope you will take the time, read this article commenting on the parable. It is written by a man whose little pamphlet changed my outlook years ago.
It will help you digest the rest of IHC.
I promise...
"for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures,
WE MIGHT HAVE HOPE
Rom 15:4
Citizenship:
Christ uncrowned himself to crown us, and put off his robes to put on our rags, and came down from heaven to keep us out of hell. He fasted forty days that he might feast us to all eternity; he came from heave to earth that he might send us from earth to heaven.
- Dyer, W.
I'm so glad you and Cindy and Carmon are doing this. I'm enjoying your entries so much - it's like a fantastic college seminar with great round-table discussion!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Laura. I'm glad you're checking in.
ReplyDeleteI am getting so much out of this reading/discussion that I have committed to reading another book this way! In January, we're going to tackle Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.
Stay tuned :)
Dana,
ReplyDeleteI have written a note on my blog asking if you would like to go ahead and do chapter 8 Friday and chapter 9 next Monday finishing the book. I would like to go ahead and plow through to the end. If not I can just keep my posts under wrap until we do finish.
Also could you figure out the schedule for Hazlitt?
I really appreciate the scripture because at this point in the book we need it.
My own worldview or mostly opinion is that the dross we live in now is not so worrisome because it will die. My eschatology of hope isn't that things will get better so much as when the things that are evil perish in themselves and reap their due reward the glorious work that God is already doing will be obvious to all....or something like that. Can you tell I haven't read Rushdoony? I do listen to his American History lectures when I walk.
Cindy, get some different walking tapes. RJR's monotone voice wont get your heartrate up for a good aerobic workout! giggle
ReplyDeleteNo, really. I hope you will eventually read those linked articles because I think they are very important.
Pan-millenialism is inconsistent with your theology, as far as I can tell.
And yes, I will work on a plan for Hazlitt's book and send you an email.