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Making Sense of Your World, Part 2
John Stonestreet begins this week’s segment discussing demographics.
To viably continue a society, it needs to maintain an average birthrate of 2.1 (according to the U.N.). However, the current European average is merely 1.5. Meanwhile, the birthrate in many Islamic countries is hovering between 5-8.
So, why aren’t Europeans having enough babies – even to enough to simply replace the adult population? In France, they believe the problem is money. So, the government set up financial incentives to increase the birthrate (although it still remained below the U.N.’s recommended standard).
Russia had another idea. Their solution was to institute a new national holiday – National Conception Day. On that day, it’s nationally promoted for adults to take the day off work, stay home and have sex. The idea behind the holiday is that Russians aren’t having enough sex. The reality is that over the last 15 years, Russia has recorded more abortions than live births.
You see, ideas have consequences. The idea system of Secularism was embraced by the European community 150 years ago. According to Secularism, “you can believe in God, but he is nothing more than a personal, private friend.” Therefore, God cannot be introduced into politics, economic theory, history, schools or the law. And when you remove God from a society, you remove the Designer from the society’s design. Instead, everything is judged with an eye toward the here and now – without concern of the Designer’s planned consequences – and Europe dies.
When the ideas surrounding Secularism not only became prevalent in western culture, but also in the lives of individuals, it’s no surprise that these ideas that disregard consequences resulted in consequences of their own – such as the sexual revolution and the devaluing of sex.
The reality is that in addition to consequences, ideas have stories.
There are six different stories, or narratives, that are vying for each of our attention.
The first is Secular Humanism, which dominates western civilization and how we currently understand law, education, politics and family. The odd thing is that it often collides with the narrative of Christianity. Christianity holds that people are made in the likeness of God and are therefore valuable, but come with certain consequences when that original design is violated.
The third story is Cosmic Humanism. This is where eastern spirituality meets western sensibilities.
The fourth is Marxism, also known as Communism. Often confused as merely an economic theory, Marxism is actually a worldview – a conception about God, man and nature.
Postmodernism is another story vying for our attention and ironically, it’s “the story where there are no stories.” Everything is relative and an individual’s moral compass is merely based on each individual’s cultural, gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic biases. In other words, everything around you essentially creates you.
Lastly is the narrative of Islam, which comes loaded with its own unique and multi-faceted group of values, priorities and standards that, while they claim that Allah is the same God as in the Bible, actually collide with Christianity.
These six stories – conceptions of reality – are fighting for your heart, your mind and how you see the world.