Who do we look up to for truth and guidance?
When God gave the Israelites the commandments they virtually touched on everything that appertains to life. This is an indicator that he’s concerned with the welfare of man wholesale. This may prove hard to understand to day in a global climate influenced by many things. In a situation where we are at a loss as to the authority that we are to look up to in matters of guiding us in life. Is it the philosopher or the pastor, is it the politician or the scientist is it the journalist or the sportsman is it the celeb or the government? Where exactly should we look up to for truth and guidance in life?
Complicated society
We have increased in self awareness and it is obvious that going forward the society will continue to be very complicated to manage. People will always act based on enlightened self interest. Take for instance the development of democracy has led to a level where by the opinion of any and all counts and matters. The room is left for the fools as well as the intelligent to sell their agenda. If it is accepted well and good. The point is if you can convince the masses then you can have your way.
Conscience subjected to constant beating
But this has led to its own challenges. Lack of centralized authority leads to a sense of confusion and chaos. At this stage the most mischievous can carry the masses and sway them to a selfish angle but the mob thinking does not allow the naïve masses to detect the stealth. The societal orientation today is about a few people seeking to influence others in opinion making and advance their goals through winning the consent of majority. And so many avenues have been generated to subject the conscience to sustained beating resulting to a state of confusion at which they are vulnerable to being swayed.
Beehive tendency
At the root of the campaign is to produce a mass of people with a beehive tendency or directed by herd instinct. Directionless just marching ahead ready to be tinged by any outside force and they take a certain course. Several fronts are played in this wider scheme to rule the souls and minds of God’s people.
1. Sports. At the face of it sports and sportsmanship is harmless, nothing wrong in football, athletics name them just a lucrative industry for leisure to some and a serious occupation to others. But when we say that football is our new religion, we actually get it wrong. When we adore football stars like Ronaldo, Rooney Messi etc we create idols out of them. The fanatical following has replaced religion and a place of God in some people. The huge industry has led to massive merchandise associated with it and so all advertising has been put at the center of these sport events.
2. Arts. Man is a being intellectual, or thinking and knowing, moral, or willing and acting, and aesthetic, or feeling and enjoying and so art is as consequential to man as is living itself. It is just natural for man to appreciate aesthetic beauty in arts. But human capacity to corruption still rears its ugly head here when arts have been reduced to senseless sensuality. Acting porn real when acting has been rendered an avenue to showcase nudity most obscene.
3. Music is yet another front. The noblest expressions of the soul often find their way out of man in form of music or poetry. They communicate the depth of the soul and so what comes out is the reflection of what really is in the heart of man. The depth of decay then that our society has fallen into is therefore openly discernible in the music compositions that come out. It is disturbing the kind of moral vacuity that the contemporary music is displaying. There is a glaring dearth of creativity and solid compositions that convey deep solid and sensible convictions. Again the dragon of debauchery has been found to dominate the music coming out of our musicians.
4. Politics. I will loosely define it as art of living together as a community. Man is a being communal. The aspect of living together as a community has varied implications. The global community national and even the local, the dynamics that determine what interests people bring on the system of politics that will determine many other things. Politics then has become too central to socio-economic affairs of every people. Pursuit for power is combined with interest in economic influence as well as social status. Quite often those who seek power advance a desire for economic and other selfish gains concealed under the garb of altruism.
5. Media. This industry is central to all the other arms working very hard to shape our society in a certain way. Media will serve to convey information in advertising and will be used to influence the masses. As often as the media wants to fake an inactive role in what it dispatches, the media is not a mirror reflecting what is out there. Its role is not simple, passive transmission, but active creation, shaping, and manufacturing, through a lengthy process of selection, filtering, interpretation, and editing. The hidden arms that hold the reins of our media are not benign charities driven by the love of humanity but very aggressive lords of empires with definite agenda to pass to the populace.
6. Religion. Religion is the holiest and deepest concern for man. It is the only way that man has a way of explaining some unfortunate tragedies of life that are just won’t be explained through mere logic. We all come to this conclusion there is an authority out there beyond our limits whose being we can credit the universe. Religion has a way of influencing every spear of human life, it rules the life of man from cradle to the grave.
7. Government. Being the science of ordering the lives of people is a very influential arm. It will determine very many ways in which life will go on in a people. Their policies will influence even the way people will worship especially if freedom of worship is guaranteed. In some countries some religions are banned while only official government religion is encouraged.
As indicated all these frontiers are indicated and they have a degree of influence on a people. This blog is dedicated to ensuring that we make a godly response to contemporary issues. We therefore advance here that all these frontiers must be made subservient to God’s supreme reign. The salient command is that Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
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