JESUS: Still the solution

In the early 20th century, the prevailing view in Western culture had been that a body of moral knowledge was possible, necessary and largely accepted for managing human life successfully. In the early 20th century, however, this attitude began to evaporate.

The result has been a steadily increasing institutional and cultural crisis … a predictable outcome of the disappearance of moral knowledge.

Now, some hundred plus years later, we find ourselves thoroughly ‘round the bend as a broken culture among broken cultures. There are questions worth answering, but not the ones being asked.

Now more than ever, we Americans would do well to abandon our pride and fear and all their insidious manifestations. We could begin by asking better questions. For example:

• How do I know what is true, and relatedly, how do I become the kind of person who instinctively — without great effort or much deliberation — recognizes the true, the good, and the beautiful? And…

• How do I become the kind of person who naturally does what is good?

The answers are best understood in the context of becoming an apprentice to Jesus, who looms large over history as someone who naturally lived a life of truth, beauty and goodness. There is a remedy for what ails us.

If you find yourself curious about such things, ask a Christian friend or local pastor. If he/she can’t help you, keep looking.

BRUCE GILBERT

Coeur d’Alene