Amusementarhea

“Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.” So said the late author, Neil Postman

That becomes particularly noteworthy when we are faced with our possible mortality sooner then we had gathered as in the COVID 19 crisis. People who are holed up on exercise machines are usually tied closely to music, podcasts or reading. Have you noticed? What is more risk averse in the Pandemic than being tied to a streamed series in binge watching? The amusement list goes on.

There are those who say, hey we weren’t here before and we won’t be here later. When the well-regarded pastor/author Tim Keller recently wrote of these folks at their deathbeds he found them far less at ease. He pointed that out in a recent article in The Atlantic. In that same article he noted NT Wright’s long volume on the evidence for the Resurrection is quite comforting to him, as, he lives through treatment for pancreatic cancer, now ( Timothy Keller, Growing My Faith in the Face of Death, The Atlantic, 3/7/21.) The Resurrection is a well-evidenced occurrence particularly for an event that occurred two millennia ago. Christ in the Resurrection conquered death, offered us forgiveness of sins and promised eternal life to those with faith in Him.

It is worth some thought or study. Don’t you think?

Oh, it’s not scientific? Oh, a man of science would be unable to accept that event? Who is more scientific then the man who led the researchers through the national Genome Project and now led the NIH, Francis Collins, MD. He has written chapter and verse on his Christian faith. He turned to Christ in medical school when faced with the reality of a daily life facing deathly ill patients.

Going back to Thomas Aquinas, an intellectual giant of the Middle Ages, he saw faith and reason walking hand in hand. Why not?