Christ_empowered
Member
I just read a website recently (lost the link though) that said that Christians need to rediscover the supernatural roots of what happens around us. That website used the example of earthquakes. Lots of Christians--including me--look at that and go "oh, yeah, the Earth is going haywire because of XYZ," and we totally ignore that God makes things happen. We'll look at the economies around the world and say "oh, well, country X made these mistakes, and this affected countries Y and Z," totally ignoring the fact that both prosperity and hardship come from our God.
So, of course, I had to think about this one. Its true, isn't it? I mean, its hard to believe that God is making everything all around you happen when the secular world has hammered into you that there's a rational explanation. I guess its like saying we're allowed to have our God, as long as our God doesn't actually *do* anything, you know?
But how far do we take it? We can't know the mind of God, obviously, so it seems a bit dangerous to say, for instance "disaster came upon country Y because of their pagan ways," when the rain falls and sun shines on good and bad alike--there's a certain amount of both joy and suffering given to everyone simply because they're alive on God's earth.
Still, I think I'm personally going to have to re-evaluate how I look at things around me. I guess its part of my ongoing project to develop a Christian Worldview. Also, the truly human part in me needs to "re-enchant" the world. In Sociology, there's a term--"dis-enchantment of the world"--that describes the process by which eventually everything becomes explained in terms of science and modern thought. Fairies, elves, demons, even God are replaced by tectonic plates, global warming, neurology, and psychology (even if these explanations are later found to be lacking, the message is clear: the supernatural has no place in the modern world).
What do you all think? How do you recapture the supernatural as you look at the world around you without ignoring meaningful modern insights?
So, of course, I had to think about this one. Its true, isn't it? I mean, its hard to believe that God is making everything all around you happen when the secular world has hammered into you that there's a rational explanation. I guess its like saying we're allowed to have our God, as long as our God doesn't actually *do* anything, you know?
But how far do we take it? We can't know the mind of God, obviously, so it seems a bit dangerous to say, for instance "disaster came upon country Y because of their pagan ways," when the rain falls and sun shines on good and bad alike--there's a certain amount of both joy and suffering given to everyone simply because they're alive on God's earth.
Still, I think I'm personally going to have to re-evaluate how I look at things around me. I guess its part of my ongoing project to develop a Christian Worldview. Also, the truly human part in me needs to "re-enchant" the world. In Sociology, there's a term--"dis-enchantment of the world"--that describes the process by which eventually everything becomes explained in terms of science and modern thought. Fairies, elves, demons, even God are replaced by tectonic plates, global warming, neurology, and psychology (even if these explanations are later found to be lacking, the message is clear: the supernatural has no place in the modern world).
What do you all think? How do you recapture the supernatural as you look at the world around you without ignoring meaningful modern insights?
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