I sat there, on my couch, late at night, watching a giant cockroach gorge on some “red shirt,” splattering the camera with poorly-rendered CGI blood, while the heroes of this B-movie ran for cover down some cavern. I loved those kind of movies. The cheesier and bloodier the science fiction, the better. In this case, the horror and blood was nothing but gratuitous, and I relished in it on that particular night.
My wife and I were going through a marital challenge, and I was unjustly angry at her. I knew putting something like this on television would make her leave the room. It did, and she went to bed.
In the midst of the movie, I recognized I was “numbing out” the anger and pain I felt by watching these monsters feast bloodily on humans, or at least the image of humans, since it was just a movie.
“Why am I enjoying watching the image of humans getting ripped apart?” I suddenly asked myself. “Isn’t this devaluing and degrading to the image of God?” The thoughts came unbidden to my mind.
And then suddenly, almost as clear as you reading this to yourself, came the question, “Why do you enjoy watching the destruction of people, when I love and died for them?”
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
I don’t know how we cannot see it. Even those who were raised in “Christian” homes seemed to be wandering aimlessly in the moral cesspool known as America. The Scriptures warn us that “When there was no God in Israel everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
Young American Christians are afloat in a sea without a compass. We have failed to train them to navigate the rough waters of the debaucherous American culture. If today’s parents don’t lose their children in high school they are sure to lose them in college.
It is my experience that for most of the Millenials I come in contact with “religion” is not the guiding factor in the moral decisions that they make. We have taught them to FEEL, not to think. Emotions are a poor foundation upon which to build moral values.
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Excerpt from chapter six of my forthcoming book, Game of Gods: The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-Enchantment. This chapter documents my time at the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Thousands of exuberant voices filled the cavernous space of the main plenary hall. It was a time of worship, a place for introspection, a space for emotional release. Multitudes lifted their voices in melodic affirmation and the assembly room, with its 30-foot high ceiling and massive cement walls, pulsed with female energy.
“Remember who you are,” sang out Vandana Shiva. “Goddess, Mother, Shakti of this Earth.” The crowd intoned back: “Goddess, Mother, Shakti of this Earth.”
It was going to be an interesting morning.