Читать книгу The Grand Sweep - Large Print - J. Ellsworth Kalas - Страница 88

Seeing Life Through Scripture

I’m surely not a naysayer, but I worry about what is happening to our public culture. How is it that life has become so cheap in so many parts of a country that is so wondrously blessed? And how come those who have the most seem so ignorant of the needs of those who have the least? And how is it that we have become, in less than a generation, a nation of gamblers, where the nightly television news zeroes in on lotteries? And why are the most intimate human relationships portrayed so freely on television and movie screens—and so often in degrading and amoral ways? And how sad that the name of God is most often heard in the public forum not as a blessing or a prayer but as a curse.

We need some sort of spiritual renewal in our land. Obviously such renewal ought to begin with the religious community. But are enough of us serious enough about God that we might be leaven in our lumpy society? Indeed, are we serious enough that we are willing to reform our own ways, so that a secular culture might have an example to attract and a pattern to imitate? What is our obligation to the time in which we live? And come to think of it, how much difference, if any, can we make? Is it possible, in a society like ours, to see a revival of faith that would cause a mass change in conduct, such as has happened at other times? Or is that no longer a possibility?

The Sum of It All

“You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 11:18-20).