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books, Cultural shift, Media, morality, quotes, Ravi Zacharias, reading, religion, spirituality, truth claims, Why Jesus
I will turn 52 later on this year. For some of you reading this that makes me very old and for some of you I am still quite young. But my 50+ years have allowed me to see some pretty major changes in the way in which we live. My children still find it hilarious that we only got three TV stations when I was growing up (which went off the air at 11:00pm) along with the palpable sense of excitement we had when we got a fourth station. Those of you my age know exactly what I am talking about. My first computer was an IBM XT8088 with a 10mg hard drive and a 5 1/4 floppy drive which I bought used when I was 28 years old. A friend of mine put a 286 motherboard in it along with a 40mg hard drive and that was all the computer that I was ever going to need.
We can laugh about some of these changes. There are other changes that feel almost cataclysmic in nature and ones that many of us do not see as changes for the better. Ravi Zacharias speaks to some of these in the opening pages of his new book Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality.
“Spirituality is writ large in the West as gurus come and go. Perhaps a primary reason for this spread of alternative spirituality and a key to unlocking much of this puzzle for us is our means of communication today. Cultural shifts do not happen in one giant step. How is it that a culture that once frowned upon certain sexual practices now frowns upon those who frown upon them? How is it that from the normal use of language in public broadcasting and in public discourse, so well tempered that even mild deviations were viewed as serious infractions, we now experience on a daily basis entertainment that has moved from the genius of humor to the crassness of shock and vulgarity? Why is it that the more perverse the story, the greater the audience it draws on television or at the theater? Why do people create false scenarios in order to have their own ‘reality’ shows? Who are these icons created by the media of the visual whose belief in some form of spirituality seems real, even if they are made-up for the sell? Has all this happened because our taboos were wrong or is it that, in a very real sense, we have pushed the Replay button on the saga of Eden and can now look, touch, and taste anything we wish to because we have become gods, determining for ourselves what is right and what is wrong?” (pp. XIII-XIV)
I have just started this fascinating read and I expect you will be hearing more from it in the days ahead.
“How is it that a culture that once frowned upon certain sexual practices now frowns upon those who frown upon them? How is it that from the normal use of language in public broadcasting and in public discourse, so well tempered that even mild deviations were viewed as serious infractions, we now experience on a daily basis entertainment that has moved from the genius of humor to the crassness of shock and vulgarity? Why is it that the more perverse the story, the greater the audience it draws on television or at the theater?”
Are you and Ravi looking for an answer? Because I think I can try one.
The reason culture has shifted is that we now know that certain acts and certain words are not, in and of themselves, harmful.
The younger generation tends to (and this is by no means consistent) examine things that they are told are harmful for reasons that are questionable.
As is normative in the dialectic format, Ravi is probably not so much looking for answers as much as proposing them. However can I assume from your response that you would, in fact, suggest the taboos were wrong?
While it may be questioned whether certain actions or words were in themselves wrong, you would certainly agree the changing (or changed) attitudes concerning them signifies a dramatic shift in the mores of our culture.
Certainly. But I don’t necessarily see the shift as a bad thing.
Which is not to say that I’m absolutely morally opposed to Christianity. I don’t find everything moral that Christianity says is immoral. But a lot…particularly the bits we could call ‘thought crimes’…are objectionable prohibitions to the modern mind. And rightly so, I say.
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Thought provoking! I can agree with the Zacharias’s observations about some of our cultural shifts, but I don’t know how I feel about the parallel to Eden. I’m not sure it’s fair to apply that comparison exclusively to current times. I mean, haven’t we been pushing “…the replay button on the saga of Eden..” well… since Eden?