Skip to main content

WHY PANIC WON’T SAVE US



By Samuel D. James - Posted at Letter & Liturgy:
“Sometimes paranoia is just good sense.”
So writes Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. Her point is well-made. Everyone should take the COVID-19 virus seriously, listen to experts and make choices that take into account the well-being of others. These are high-stakes times. Churches and schools are shuttering for weeks; hospitals sit on the brink of being overrun. There are moments when wisdom and compassion look like overreaction, and right now is one of those moments.

Still, I wish I could tell Peggy Noonan that panic won’t save us. It never does.

The Bible has much to say about fear, and nearly all of it is either a promise or a warning. On the one hand, God’s people have boatloads of promises from our sovereign king that he is with us and fights for us. Fear, even fear of death, melts in the beams of eternal love and security. On the other hand, God’s people also have many warnings about misdirecting our fear. Jesus warned us that we ought not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul, and the context implies that misdirected fear can be a sign that our souls are not as safe as we think.

There is a kind of “fear” that gives birth to prudence. Washing your hands many more times than usual because of a viral contagion in your community is prudent, and it comes from an awareness that failing to wash could endanger you or someone else. To some extent that is fear, but it is healthy. But we should clearly distinguish fear from panic...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wokeism: When the Cure is Worse Than the Disease

 Posted at Churches Without Chests : Africa receives some American errors that are quite beneficial. For example, before the NBA finals, the Super Bowl or the World Series, sports merchandisers produce memorabilia of both finalists winning, so as to be able to immediately sell when the final is over. Unfortunately, half of that merchandise represents an alternate universe: where the team that lost actually won. What happens to the champions-that-never-were T-shirts and caps? Much of it is donated to third-world countries, where needy folks wear shirts displaying an event that never happened. Hey, we’re not complaining. Another shirt on a poor man’s back is a good thing, even if it celebrates what never occurred. Error is sometimes beneficial. Some imported errors are profoundly destructive, though. The worst of them are theological errors, for what touches Scripture touches ultimate realities. Two such errors that originated in America are particularly devastating for a country like m

MAGA's Morality Problem

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert speaking with attendees at the 2021 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo by Gage Skidmore (Source:  MAGA's Morality Problem | Shane Vander Hart )  By Shane Vander Hart When a voting base dismisses the importance of private virtue, we shouldn't be surprised when their leaders lack it. Elected officials having affairs and the like is not new, we've seen Republicans and Democrats caught in scandals. What is new, however, are those being dismissive or defensive of the behavior. Does personal morality and character matter when considering political candidates and elected officials? For me, for me that is an unequivocal yes. The MAGA movement disagreed excusing and elevating a serial adulterer to the White House. We are seeing the fruit of this position today. Continue here.

God, History and the Nations

 By Bill Muehlenberg - Posted at CultureWatch: Published September 12, 2023 Good news about rogue rulers and evil tyrants: A major problem we have as mere fallen and finite creatures is that we lack perspective. We do not see the big picture and we do not consider the long term. Christians can be just as guilty of this as non-Christians. We can too easily become overwhelmed by events going on around us. This can especially be true regarding wicked rulers and evil nations. I have been around for a while now, and I recall worrying greatly about things like the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Communism seemed to be the wave of the future back then. But of course the wall came down in 1989, and over seven decades of godless Communist rule came to an end – at least in that part of the world. And many empires have come and gone over the centuries, be they the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, and so on. Yet when we see powerful and evil nations today, it still can seem like they are