Culture

The following theological questions suggest sociological implications for those who would want to eradicate, tear down, set afire, uproot, poison, or worse, ignore the wheat and leave the tares: for those who have ears to hear. [Written in the summer of 2023 during another socio-political upheaval, I reposted in April 2024 with follow up questions below, contemplating the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas campus protests.

THEOLOGICAL-SOCIOLOGICAL UNREST QUESTIONS With what will you exchange current structures, systems, and institutions? What will you put in their place? What laws, what beliefs, what sustaining order will fill the void tomorrow, you so easily overthrow today? What will happen when those who cheer you now, tire of your substitution then? What villain will be erected when your current strawman is burned, the crowds looking for new destruction? And once the overthrow is complete, why should we obey when you are in charge? Will you not become the target of “the people?” [Did Robespierre fare better in the French Revolution?] If you offer hope, what will it be? Will paradise ascend? Will all be fed? Will wars be no more? Will disease be eradicated? Will you expect every knee to bow and every tongue to confess? What new totem will you erect? What will be your “religion?” To whom would you have us pray, desiring our petitions be met? What heaven will you bid us enter? What will be your “everlasting?”

In the following question bank the “you” is collective, not personal. To those encouraging a “revolution” to replace Western values:

1. Have the tenets you presently pursue been tried elsewhere?
2. What was the outcome of applying anti-Western values in other cultures?
3. How would your application of those beliefs differ as you apply them in your time and place?
4. Have you compared views at odds with your “revolution,” including dissidents or refugees from the countries where these ideas were promoted and applied?
5. Have you articulated what is the current “status quo” and why it is necessary to overthrow it?
6. Have you given time, talent, or treasure in support of the revolutionary movement (apart from ad hoc discussions or social media posts)?
7. Will all people be treated equally after this revolution, even for those who stood against it?
8. If you protest, do you know the origin of the organization, the funding behind the cause (do students come to campus with tents, for instance?), or if outside “agitators” are involved?
9. Does your protest arise out of a researched, informed basis of thought or is the protest driven by emotion, “extremist” viewpoints or social media?
10. What outcome do you hope for in your revolution and have you listed what those expectations would be?

All must ponder the honest calculation of their personal participation. Individually and collectively you must decide whether or to what extent you will act on your beliefs. Standing for something when it doesn’t personally cost anything isn’t really standing for anything at all.

AFTERWORD Science fiction can provide some illumination. On January 4^th 2022 this Truth in Two was posted about “dystopia.” Watch/read here: https://bit.ly/3mXskEv I remember exactly where I was listening to NPR when I heard that Isaac Asimov had died. I wrote another TNT including him on May 14^th 2021 here: https://markeckel.com/2021/05/14/utopia/ Years ago I read Hoffer’s The True Believer and remember one of his memorable lines: Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without belief in a devil. 

AFTERWORD #2 Our country has witnessed weeks of organized demonstrations – some peaceful, some not – which has caused some to ask the question, “When does free speech cross into illegal activity?” From our friends at the Free Press, here is the letter written by the president of the University of Chicago that clarifies, with examples, how U of C will respond. “Where Does Free Speech End and Law Breaking Begin?” gives a declarative response.

As an academic, I try to be thoughtful about my response to social, political issues. The kinds of questions listed here should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. My interest is to help students and faculty to think through the implications of their worldview and the virtues they claim. I am the Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University.

We blame others. But it’s our own fault. It’s all our fault. Complaints about “identity politics,” “structural racism,” or “cancel culture” begin with us, according to Mary Eberstadt from her speech, “Men Are at War with God.” Eberstadt’s research into the storied wreckage of human lives begins with breakdown in families. She reports

As I researched their stories and read their own words in interviews, something stunning emerged. Every individual on the list shared two common harms: divorced or absent parents, and violent childhood or adolescent abuse, in almost all ­cases sexual.

Youth are trying to fill a “sense that the world into which they were born is somehow inhuman.” The result stands to reason: if something is missing, it must be replaced. “Family” is now whatever identity or ideology seems to satisfy. I have had decades of experience with young people broken by familial and sexual destruction. Students at the public university will remain after class to talk with me. They are seeking to fill the abyss of meaning, purpose, and reason – for anything.

The one circled word in my print copy of Eberstadt’s speech exactly depicts the reason in the search for reason; the word is “anguish.” Eberstadt writes

There is a common denominator beneath the bizarre rituals occurring on campuses and elsewhere, beneath an increasingly punitive social media, beneath the performative rage of BLM—indeed, beneath cancel culture itself. It is anguish.

“Anguish” is no trite word. “Anguish” is the deep yaw of “The Scream” so well depicted in the 1893 Edvard Munch portrait. Anguish is more than anxiety. Anguish is the cry of the tortured soul, a pain so deep, so primal, that the only recourse is the scream. Yes, Mothers in Massachusetts scream. And “Science Says Screaming is Good for You.” But Eberstadt speaks about an emptiness that has yet to be satisfied.

Endemic to the problem of anguish is “the steep rise in psychiatric problems among American teenagers and young adults.” A counselor friend tells me that his calendar is full, people are waiting months out. Calls about mental health are put on a waiting list, days that must seem innumerable days. “Loneliness studies abound, spotlighting the isolation of the elderly in every Western nation.” On the phone with my mom once a week, she tells me how friends in her age group have been abandoned. Contact with their children is spotty at best, non-existent at worst. The situation is nothing new if Harry Chapin was right when he sang “Cat’s in the Cradle.”

Eberstadt’s solution? The “rollback [of] abortion [and] divorce” should be the highest “social justice priorities of our time.” She gives an ultimatum,

In the end, the choice before people of faith is simple. We either believe that there are souls on the line, or we don’t—including the souls of those who hate what we stand for, or what they think we stand for. We either believe that they, like us, are created in the image of God and for a purpose, or we subject ourselves and all who come after us to perpetual self-invention and its miseries. So let us witness as best we can to the truth that humanity’s problem today is not with creation. It’s rather with interference in that creation by an ongoing revolutionary experiment—one that sweat and prayer and grace may yet turn around.

We bear responsibility for the problem and the solution. Perhaps instead of marking our territories with fences to keep others out, we should erect bridges to let them in. If you are in anguish, you do not look for sociological responses; you are looking to fill the hole in your soul.

First published at Salvo 14 February 2022 with the title, “Souls on the Line.” Apocalyptic scenarios dot the news. Everyone from billionaires building underground shelters to preppers preparing for the worst are concerned about the future. My suggestion is to look in the mirror, to consider your place in the world, and be mindful in the present of your future state in the eternal.  

Picture credit: SnappyGoat.com

The hands and feet of Jesus

worked and walked in New York City.

Watch our Truth in Two to find out why and who! [2 min vid + text]

Dr. Mark Eckel is Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University. Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website) and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point through Truth in Two videos (here).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat, Angel Studios, Cabrini Press | Angel Studios

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“New York is built upon the dead.” So begins the trailer for the movie Cabrini. The film from Angel Studios is the story of, Cabrini, an Italian immigrant who arrives in New York City in 1889. Her first encounter with the metropolis is disease and death. She takes it upon herself to provide housing and healthcare for the most vulnerable. Overcoming the problems of learning a new language, her own poor health, and the obstinate opposition of New York’s mayor, Cabrini’s work is successful. As she says in the film, “If we are to build an empire of hope, it seems we must first conquer New York.”

Mocked, threatened, and persecuted, Cabrini literally rebuilt a city from the ground up, caring first for those who could not help themselves. I admit that I have a soft spot when it comes to protecting women. But it turns out Cabrini would not have needed my help. When told that she would have made an excellent man because of her entrepreneurial skills, Cabrini replies, “No. Men could never do what we women do.”

The director of Cabrini, Alegandro Monteverde, also directed Sound of Freedom. Find a link to our review of this and other Monteverde projects at the end of this Truth in Two. Monteverde’s directorial life has been committed to stories about protection of the most vulnerable in society, beginning with the unborn. Monteverde reflects what a visitor would find at Angel Studios landing page suggesting the studio’s mission: “stories that amplify light.” As the movie site Fandango suggests “Cabrini uses her entrepreneurial mind to build an empire of hope unlike anything the world had ever seen.” Cabrini opened this past weekend. At the time of this writing, the crowd sourced movie had already sold two million tickets. In celebration of Women’s History Month, For the Comenius Institute, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.

LINKS

Bella  https://warpandwoof.org/bella/

Sound of Freedom https://markeckel.com/2023/07/17/gods-children/

Going to an art museum can remind us,

Art has its origins outside of us.

Follow our examples in this week’s Truth in Two (2 min vid plus text + link below).

Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

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When I taught at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, I created and taught a course titled, “Faith and Learning.” The course swung on the hinges of a biblical worldview, that all of life is sacred, and we Christian’s bear responsibility to think God’s thoughts after Him, in every subject of study. One of the active-learning experiences I built into the curriculum was something I called “art exegesis.” The point of the project was to interpret art based on the artist’s intention from a Christian worldview. At Moody we were within blocks of one of the greatest art museums in the world, the Chicago Museum of Art. Students chose, then studied, their selected piece of visual art. We spent a whole evening at the museum going from artwork to artwork, each student presenting their interpretation of the piece while standing next to it. The experience was so captivating to others that people began to follow us, listening while students presented.

I was reminded of my Moody days when I recently spent 90 minutes chatting with my publisher friend, Keith Ogorek. He and his co-author Mac Powell have just written a book helping people to capture their own “ah ha” moments in an art museum. Folks like Keith and I believe that we respond to a piece of art, but we can then interpret the artwork based on what it meant to the spiritual life of the artist who created it. You can find a link to Keith’s book in this Truth in Two.

In recent church teaching I used this slide over and over to point out that everything is sacred. Everything that is – while corrupted by human sin – has its origin in God. As Christians we can revel in every scientific discovery and each exploration of the humanities. And sometimes we can go to an art museum to do just that. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, personally seeing Truth wherever it’s found.

The Soul Shine Through: The Surprising Spiritual Influences on Famous Artists https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Shine-Through-Surprising-Influences/dp/1665729252/

The real life story

is better than Hemingway’s story.

Watch our pro-life Truth in Two to understand (2 min vid + text + Afterword).

Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

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When I first started teaching high school, I looked for stories about ideas that I wanted my students to wrestle with. One of those stories – Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants – is an abortion story without using the word. Both points of view are considered. The man would obviously like the woman to have an abortion, relieving himself from the consequences of raising a child. The woman, carrying new life within her, wants to think about keeping the baby. There is much to take into consideration in the story from both points of view.

But what I remember most about that reading and the ensuing discussion was a letter I received in the mail the next year. One of the students from that class discussion about abortion had written a paper on the topic. Surprisingly, a literature professor in the first year of this young woman’s college experience had the class read the same Hemingway story. My former student was kind enough to send me a copy of the paper she had written in her first-year college lit class.

The introduction to the paper described a woman who had gone through the same experience as the woman in Hills Like White Elephants. It seems a senior in high school had been impregnated by her high school principal. The man in this real-life situation was trying to persuade the young woman to have an abortion. The majority of the paper then went on to interpret Hemingway’s short story. But the conclusion, oh, the conclusion of the paper, I will never forget. Returning to the introduction, the young woman in the story was my former student’s mom; and the pregnancy being considered for abortion was my student. I was flabbergasted. The student never mentioned the story in my class. But I retell her story here as a testimony to the celebration of human life. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.

AFTERWORD

Do notice the “Abortion health information” tag imposed on our video by YouTube. Both on the YouTube Comenius page and here on MarkEckel.com the powers that be want to make sure that their social commentary is heard. As the creator of the content for every Truth in Two, I wanted those who watch or read the material to be sure to know that tag is not my statement. Find other pro-life Truth in Two videos here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

To Whom or what will you bow?

Your decision matters.

Watch our Truth in Two to find out why (full text below).

Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

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In the first and second centuries the ruling authoritarian government of Rome, persecuted Christians for crimes against the state. What were those crimes? Chief among the reasons for Christian persecution was the refusal of Christians to worship Roman gods. To the Romans, their deities, their gods, were the reason for their victory in war or bountiful resources. When told to give obeisance to these gods, Christians refused, claiming there is only one God who has disclosed Himself in the person and work of Jesus, the Christ. Roman authorities then used their political beliefs to penalize Christians for their speech, in their finances, and ultimately, in their death.

Christian views that go against the ruling vision of any culture are seen as an attack on the accepted gods of that age, including political viewpoints. Everyone worships something. And by ‘worship’ I mean a total dedication to current, cultural beliefs. Cultural idols come in many forms. We customize our preferences. We commercialize our consumer desires, equating our views with what we buy. We determine the logic of a thing. If it makes sense to our group – even if it doesn’t conform to created reality – then it must be true. We measure “truth” (in air quotes) by popularity and polls promoted by publicity. We live in the “now,” refusing to consider that there is a “then,” a life after this life, a final judgment.

To many people, politics is their religion. Groups live and die with each election, each ballot cast. And the governance of a nation can become a real idol. Parties and platforms are human-centered idols. Not bowing to the beliefs and threats of a governing body may begin the suppression of speech and the elimination of one’s job. What happened in Rome is happening here. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking Truth wherever it’s found.

Government programs do not solve problems.

People on the ground do.

Find out why bottom-up is better than top-down (with text and Afterword links).

Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

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You smell it before you see it. Homelessness is an epidemic in America. Stories and studies from San Francisco and Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle paint a bleak picture. Local governments have not mediated the problem. Bureaucracy tends to be slow, and its organizational structure spends more taxpayer dollars on the machinery of administration. Monies trickle down to people who are in need or the actual workers on the frontlines of homelessness. Top-down management does not work well.

But there are local groups like the Lucky Duck Foundation in San Diego combating social problems such as homelessness. For instance, the very first thing a person is given at the San Diego shelter is an ID. On the street a homeless person may be a nobody; but in the shelter, they are somebody. Historically we know that the best kind of change is made by individuals, not government agencies. Burt Folsom’s book The Myth of the Robber Barons gives historical evidence of how individual entrepreneurialism is better than government control any day. Find the links to these two resources at the end of this Truth in Two

The best kind of change comes from the people who must live with the problems they face. Local initiatives are the way to overcome local concerns. The book of Titus leads the way for Christian bottom-up influence. Paul tells Titus eight times in three short chapters, that believers are to “do good, do good, do good.” For those who believe the Bible, teach the bottom-up philosophy of Jeremiah 29 where God’s people are instructed to “seek the welfare of the city where God has sent you.” And for those who don’t believe the Bible, give them a copy of Burt Folsom’s book.

It is a good reminder just after Labor Day: the best change, the best help you could ask for, comes bottom-up. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of the Comenius Institute, personally seeing Truth wherever it’s found.

AFTERWORD These are but a few of the resources that will point to others, showing that government programs do not serve people as well as the people who live there.

Nordlinger, Jay. “Angels in San Diego,” National Review 29 May 2023, pp. 18-20.

The Lucky Duck Foundation, San Diego

Folsom, Burt. The Myth of the Robber Barons.

Calling someone names

says more about your name, than theirs.

Find out why we think so by watching our Truth in Two (full text below)

Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

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Everyone in elementary school knew me as “Eckel the elephant.” I was short and fat, or, as was acceptable to say in those days, I was considered, “stocky.” Before I grew six inches one summer, I was a roly-poly kid who couldn’t climb a rope in gym class to save his life. The fact that I remember how I felt decades ago gives credence to the fact that name-calling hurts. Sticks and stones do break bones and words will always hurt people.

But I would like to suggest that the act of name-calling has not stopped. It continues in adulthood. When you call someone “narrowminded,” “a terrorist,” or a “bigot,” for instance, you are saying more about yourself than the person you wish to debase. To describe another person and their perspective in negative terms only does two things: it alienates you from the other person and displays your true character. Take the word “bigot,” for instance. The word itself is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs, who does not like other people who have different beliefs.” Or take the definition from Merriam-Webster. A bigot is a person who is intolerantly devoted to her prejudices and treats members of other groups with hatred and intolerance.” So, when you call someone a “bigot,” who is the “bigot”?

I doubt very much that name-calling in politics moves individuals to change their views. I suspect the opposite is true: when attacked, people have a tendency to become immovable, doubling-down on their political postures no matter what. Sure, being called names when I was a kid hurt. Being called names made me commit to physical exercise. In adulthood, calling out name-callers is most important to me now. Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, no longer “Eckel the Elephant,” president of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking truth, without bigotry, wherever it’s found.

Poisoning relationships

is a two-way street.

Watch our Truth in Two to find out why (full text below).

Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat

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I grew up in a home of violence. My father was an abusive, adulterous, alcoholic. I have lived through another side of misogyny, defined as the hatred of women. I was a child living and breathing the toxic fumes of hostility. Knowing what I know about hatred of the other gender, by both experience and research, I must also say, toxicity is not a one-way street.

The way the word “toxicity” is used in our culture seems only to apply to men. The phrase “male toxicity” has been a phrase used to point out awful male behavior. As I said, I lived with such toxicity. However, the word itself comes from the Greek which meant “bow,” as in “bow and arrow.” The application of the word morphed into “poison arrow,” these arrows were then used as weapons. Fast forward to the 20^th century and we find the famous “skull and crossbones” universally used as the symbol for something that is toxic, poisonous, with death as a possible outcome.

According to Scripture, anyone can be toxic. Psalm 58 proclaims telling lies is the poison of a snake. Romans 3 explains the words of an unrighteous person lead to death. And don’t forget James 3:8 which proclaims, “No human being can tame the tongue, it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” Toxic, poisonous attitudes, words, and actions can be true of anyone, man or woman. The problem with the phrase “male toxicity” is that the phrase is incomplete. We should rather say, “human toxicity,” because the poison can come from any one of us. Take it from someone who has experienced toxicity in his childhood and has seen the same poison in any number of human interactions throughout his life. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking truth and exposing untruth, wherever it’s found.