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| Chuck Colson: Inadequate ideologies |
| Wednesday, August 03, 2005 |
| Chuck Colson: Inadequate ideologies: "Recently, a Wall Street Journal poll announced that both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, are now held in low regard by the American people. Usually if the fortunes of one party decline, the other party increases-sort of a zero sum game. Now, however, for the first time in polling history, both parties come up in negative territory.
Why would this be? Well, the driver who took me to do a CNN broadcast recently gave me a hint. He didn't know who Karl Rove was, and he didn't know who all the people up on Capitol Hill were who were calling for his scalp. Nor did he care. He dismissed it as just politics, that is, ideologically driven politics.
When ideology begins to replace revealed truth as the basis for governing a society, you inevitably have the kind of polarization we have in America today, Reds vs. Blues. Ideology is a man-made political formulation for how people should live their lives together and is, therefore, from our perspective as Christians, inherently flawed. And it's dangerous when a society becomes so polarized over ideology that it lacks a frame of reference for agreeing on the common good.
This all started when moral relativism took root in America, beginning in the sixties on the campuses and then invading popular culture -back when Time magazine asked that provocative question, "Is God dead?" When this happened, the overarching standards of truth and moral behavior historically governing our society were undermined. And forty years of aggressive secularism since then have simply erased the idea of moral absolutes-no such thing as truth; everything is a matter of personal preference.
This eliminates the possibility of reasoned, intelligent discourse. Since people are attracted to different ideologies, all we can do is clash. So every issue about how we govern ourselves, or what our standards ought to be, ends up in a titanic wrestling match.
The American public is rightly disenchanted with this poor excuse for a political process. And while I would like to blame the politicians, I can’t. They are simply reflecting what has happened in our broader culture—the death of truth, the lack of any common standard by which we can judge what we do. The tragedy is, of course, that politicians will continue to lose stature in the public’s eye with the over-the-top rhetoric we saw in the Karl Rove case. With no agreed-upon standards, you just start shouting more loudly.
Public discourse becomes course, unreflective, harsh, and when you don’t get your way, it becomes shrill. You set out to destroy your political enemies, because power is the way to win an argument. Obviously, people are going to be turned off by this." |
posted by Jack Mercer @ 8/03/2005 05:22:00 AM   |
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| 2 Comments: |
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Hey, this is Brent over at The Middle Ear. I'm back after a long hiatus. I just wanted to thank you for the link to this column as it especially hits close to home for someone who is tiring of the two-party systems need to only indict the other guy.
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Jack, your commentary is needed over at TSTF! The Iran post, it'll be on top if you go now!
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Name: Jack Mercer
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"Snipet" (pronounced: snipe - it) is not a word.It is a derivative of two words: "Snipe" and "Snippet".
Miriam Webster defines Snipe as: to aim a carping or snide attack, or: to shoot at exposed individuals (as of an enemy's forces) from a usually concealed point of vantage.
Miriam Webster defines Snippet as: : a small part, piece, or thing; especially : a brief quotable passage.
In short, "Snipets" are brief, snide shots at exposed situations from a concealed vantage point.
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Hey, this is Brent over at The Middle Ear. I'm back after a long hiatus. I just wanted to thank you for the link to this column as it especially hits close to home for someone who is tiring of the two-party systems need to only indict the other guy.