Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Included in my morning routine is opening the day's "Writer's Almanac" posted to my e-mail by National Public Radio. I do it for more than interesting factoids. Often there is a worldview statement which catches my eye. Today was a case in point.
It seems today is the 152nd anniversary of the death of Henry David Thoreau, the author of such books as Walden and Civil Disobedience.
The "Almanac" reported that "before he died his aunt asked him if he was at peace with God, and he replied, 'I was not aware that we had quarreled.'"
The reply was consistent with his love affair with democracy and could serve as a motto for today's neo-paganism and pseudo-Christianity. The love of the God who revealed himself in the Bible has been so democratized, that even those who profess to represent him seem unaware of any moral complaint that might exist between them and him.
For the record: I have found the Scripture to be true with regard to the deeply rooted quarrel between my heart and the God whose Kingdom contradicts my kingdom. I have also found peace with God through repentance of my treason and hope in what he did in Christ to be at peace with me even while I was still at war with him. I have also come to realize that being at peace with God through Jesus Christ puts me in a quarrelsome relationship with the world (as a system of philosophy), the flesh (my habituated pursuit of my own kingdom of lusts), and the devil (who will constantly be about accusing me to God and God to me). Many, I think, look at that as a bad deal - changing one quarrel for three. But the antagonists are different. It is gaining peace with the infinite and good God at the expense of harassment from three finite and naughty god-players.
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