The message we are left with, and in turn, the way we live in regards to blinding ideologies, is to be very hesitant to ask questions or to attempt to think differently from the group one happens to be a part of at any given moment. The responses from those surrounding you can be very brutal. And all those responses are driven by fear.
Most often when someone changes his or her mind about their former ideologies, more than likely they exchange them for another set of ideologies conjured up by the world. With that being the case, I guess it is understandable that the group one is now moving away from in the realm of thinking would feel threatened. All the world's ideologies are competing against one another and often are at war with one another attempting to destroy opposing ideologies.
Today I see liberals acting real smug sensing that conservatism is gasping for air and might not survive the approaching death blow in the realm of ideas based upon how this election seems to be going. For the past 20 years I've heard conservatives saying that liberalism/socialism was on it's death bed having been proven time after time to be an inferior idea in comparison with conservatism. Standing outside it all helps one see the absolute lunacy being touted by both ideological groups.
It's all a trap and it's all a lie. Living within any such ideologies will without a doubt set us against our neighbor. Ideologies are oppressive by nature to someone. All of them.
The Incarnation, God choosing to come into the midst of the world and all her ideologies that ravage his people was a radical act indeed....the only final death blow that has ever really occurred. All the crazy ideas humanity has come up with were judged and rendered powerless and coming to an end.
As I am seeing it, Jesus didn't give us a better/superior ideology to follow and enforce upon other people in hopes of dominating them. He gave us himself and he didn't dominate anyone. Jesus is the good news....for people.....not so good news for the world system and all her blinding ideologies of politics, economics, religion, and social systems with which she attempts to keep people enslaved.
Love and grace do their thing in the midst of a world governed by law and sin and shame and guilt but when people begin to be set free by love and grace they begin to see that love and grace is an invitation to come out from under the blinding influences of all these blinding ideologies....and live free so as to love people out of these destructive mistaken notions.
4 comments:
Kent,
Such Truth about the destructiveness of ideologies.
Love your wisdom in this: "Standing outside it all helps one see the absolute lunacy being touted by both ideological groups....It's all a trap and it's all a lie. Living within any such ideologies will without a doubt set us against our neighbor. Ideologies are oppressive by nature to someone. All of them."
"As I am seeing it, Jesus didn't give us a better/superior ideology to follow and enforce upon other people in hopes of dominating them. He gave us himself and he didn't dominate anyone."
Blessings,
~Amy :)
http://amyiswalkinginthespirit.blogspot.com
Amy, this is one of the most freeing revelations that has happened in my life. When my eyes where opened to see one of them I was trapped in....it spread out from there like a web and one after another they began to fall...the prison walls that had formed in my mind around that way of thinking began to come down.
Ah! It's good Kent, to see others of like mind, who have disentangled themselves from those fearful, controlling mindsets. For a while there, it just didn't seem right, after so many years of thinking...... But yes, life is much less cluttered and I can more see the One I do have heart to follow so much more clearly. The air has cleared.
Heather
Thanks Heather. It really is amazing when the fog created but such ideologies begins to clear and we begin to be able to see people again. People Jesus loves and is puruing as much as he is pursuing you and I. The love and grace shown to me will no longer allow differences of opinion expressed by others to come inbetween the love and grace Jesus wants me to extend even to those who are different.
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