If they had worshiped Jesus and Caesar, they would have gone unharmed, but they rejected all forms of syncretism.
But we must notice that there is a second result of modern man’s loss of meaning and values which is more ominous, and which many people do not see. This second result is that the elite will exist. Society cannot stand chaos. Some group or some person will fill the vacuum. An elite will offer us arbitrary absolutes, and who will stand in its way?
It is a special annoyance of mine that men try to separate philosophy and religion. This is false separation, because both ultimately seek the meaning of life.
Often Christians, young and old alike, have not faced the facts about their own countries – that they are under the judgment of God. Perhaps that explains why they are often without enthusiasm in their proclamation of the gospel, why they just give the crumbling wall a coat of paint.
This reality of which I speak falls into two parts: the fact that the universe truly exists and it has a form, and then what I would call the “mannishness” of man – which is my own term for meaning that man is unique.
The factor which makes art Christian is not that it necessarily deals with religious subject matter.
Christ is with those in paradise now. But Christ – the same Christ, with the same reality – promises the Christian that he will bring forth fruit through us in this life now. The power of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ will bring forth this fruit through us now.
At that point the words left or right will make no difference. They are only two roads to the same end. There is no difference between authoritarian government from the right or the left: the results are the same.
No truly authoritarian government can tolerate those who have a real absolute by which to judge its arbitrary absolutes and who speak out and act upon that absolute.
Here is a sentence to memorize: To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.
Even the world view that there is no meaning is a message.
We should realize that if something untrue or immoral is stated in great art it can be far more destructive and devastating than if it is expressed in poor art or prosaic statement.
Nobody cared who worshiped whom so long as the worshiper did not disrupt the unity of the state, centered in the formal worship of Caesar.
The principle of saying no to self lies at the heart of my attitude toward the world as it maintains its alien stand in rebellion against the Creator.
Without the context of the biblical teaching about Man, meaning, and morals, such rightful insights and tools as democracy, economic interests, global relations, and techniques take on a life of their own. Fanatical religion will replace truth and commitment. They turn the human being into a little god with monstrous, because untrained, irrational and unrestrained intentions who has tools at his disposal to justify the most murderous competition, selfishness, and greed.
To demand the art forms of yesterday in either word systems or art is a bourgeois failure.
As we consider the coming of an elite, an authoritarian state, to fill the vacuum left by the loss of Christian principles, we must not think naively of the models of Stalin and Hitler. We must think rather of a manipulative authoritarian government.
Upon his authority he gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians.
Before a man is ready to become a Christian, he must have a proper understanding of truth, whether he has fully analyzed his concept of truth or not. All people, whether they realize it or not, function in the framework of some concept of truth. Our concept of truth will radically affect our understanding of what it means to become a Christian. We are concerned, at this point, not with the content of truth so much as with the concept of what truth is.
Whenever men say they are looking for greater reality, we must show them at once the reality of true Christianity. This is real because it is concerned with the God who is there and who has spoken to us about himself, not just the use of the symbol god or christ which sounds spiritual but is not.
The present chasm between the generations has been brought about almost entirely by a change in the concept of truth.