St. Augustine on the (Temporal) City of Man and the (Eternal) City of God

Citizens of two cities
It would be misleading to conclude that Augustine was preoccupied with inward and individualistic religion merely because he exhibited great personal sensitivity and had a profound understanding of human psychology in his book, Confessions. On the contrary, his wide-ranging interests moved him to commend a Christian faith that addresses diverse issues including biblical interpretations, philosophy of history, political science and ethics.

Augustine’s big tome, The City of God,/1/ a project spanning fifteen years, was spurred by accusations that the city of Rome fell to invading barbarians because Christianity undermined the moral fiber of the Empire. In response, Augustine goes beyond giving a straightforward reply and instead, constructed a comprehensive Christian social philosophy which would demonstrate the intellectual vigor of Christianity. To achieve this ambitious project, Augustine utilized all the tools of classical learning and pressed them into service of Christian scholarship. He displayed familiarity with the intellectual classics of mythology, history, theology and philosophy as he mounted acute polemics against pagan religions and philosophies. He was indebted to classical philosophy like Neoplatonism and the commonsensical wisdom of Cicero. He mastered the works of classical historians like Varro, Caesar’s librarian and author of 490 books, who was regarded as “the most brilliant of his age and most learned man in Rome” (City of God, 6.2) to buttress his case. However, he always maintained his independent Christian perspective. The sheer comprehensiveness of his project displays his confidence that Christianity alone gives a superior account for all aspects of life. All in all, The City of God is a manifesto on how to be an other-worldly but responsible citizen in the world. Continue reading “St. Augustine on the (Temporal) City of Man and the (Eternal) City of God”

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis (1943) – Kairos Podcast Review on Books & Culture


The Abolition of Man (1943) by C.S. Lewis
Kairos Podcast Review on Books & Culture

Reviewer: David B.C. Tan
Discussant: Micheal Lim

You are welcome to join the discussion at:

Book Review: The Abolition of Man

Please forward this message if you find the video discussion helpful.
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In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society. “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments.” (C.S. Lewis)

By it [right sentiments] Lewis means “emotions conform[ing] to Reason.” As he explains it, “The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it…For Lewis the ability to have right sentiments is what separates humans from animals…The failure to nurture right sentiments ultimately results in the abolition of man, Lewis contends, because modern education produces “what may be called Men without Chests.” (Enc. Britannica)

In Lewis’s template, “the head rules the belly through the chest”—the chest is the mediator between our animal urges and minds and is the mechanism for training and tempering the belly. Without the chest, our disordered loves run wild. (J. Kohm)

Video Recording of Talk on Bible and Homosexuality by Ng Kam Weng

You can view the one hour video at:
The Bible and Homosexuality

Outline of Talk

A. Getting the Facts Right
– possible causes of homosexuality and homosexual life-style.
– Can homosexual change?
– What the bible says about homosexual practice.

B. Relevant Biblical Texts
– Matt. 19:1-6 – God’s creation order of heterosexual marriage.
– Gen. 19:4-8; Jude 7 – Judgment on Sodom.
– Lev. 18:22; Lev. 20:13 – Homosexual practice as an abomination to the Lord.
– 1 Sam. 18 – Were David and Jonathan in a homosexual relationship?
– Rom. 1 – Homosexual practice is “contrary to nature” or disordered desire.
– 1 Cor. 6:9-10. Homosexual practice, along with other sexual sins condemned..

C. Affirmation
1. Sexual complementarity is good.
2. Marriage is good.
3. Sex is good – Sacramental reminder of the joys of first love.
4. Family Reproduction is good. Learning to love and give.

D. Final Challenge
– Fulfilment in Christ beyond sex.
– We seek humbly to share the wholeness found in God’s grace that brings liberation and substantial healing to our brokenness.

Related Posts
Nashville Statement (2017): A Coalition For Biblical Sexuality

 

 

Naomi Wolf on the Return of Ancient Demonic Gods in the West

[A new statute with horns and tentacles erected in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on top of NYC Court house]
What are the causes of the ascendancy of irrational cancel-culture spirit in the colleges, the imposition of sexual policies which undermine the traditional family in wider society, the breakdown of social norms leading to eruption of violent street crime, and the ferocious hostility directed against Judeo-Christian values by the American elite and Woke activists in the USA today? I have for years tried to impress friends who asked me this question that there is no rhyme or reason to the tragic disintegration of what was once a great civilization – these are the symptoms of a “spiritual disease.”

At one level, my answer identifies the root problem. I am aware of the prescient warning given by the American Puritan, John Winthrop who charged his compatriots in 1630 to fulfill the responsibility being raised by God as “a city set on a hill” – “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world…But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.” In other words, their failure to uphold their covenant with God will lead to them becoming a public spectacle for all the world to see.

However, as an observer living outside the USA, I found difficulties spelling out in a concrete manner what comprises the “spiritual disease” that is afflicting the American society. Hence, my answer remains unpersuasive because of its vagueness and lack of specificity. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when I came across an article by Naomi Wolf, “Have the Ancient Gods Returned” which offers a coherent and in-depth analysis of the cultural implosion and the social disintegration that is unravelling right before our eyes. Mind you, Wolf is a public intellectual with whom I least expect to agree with as she is one of the icons of feminism, and a left-wing activist working with the highest political leaders of the country. I have naturally assumed that she would be sympathetic to the anti-Judeo-Christian sentiments that are pervasive among the American elites. However, it seems that she had an epiphany of the dark forces that are energizing the activists who seek to destroy the Judeo-Christian foundations which made the West a great civilization. Her article is well worth reading.

Given below are some excerpts from the article.
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In an essay last year, and in my book The Bodies of Others, I raised a question about existential, metaphysical darkness.

I concluded that I had looked at the events of the past three years using all of my classical education, my critical thinking skills, my knowledge of Western and global history and politics; and that, using these tools, I could not explain the years 2020-present.

Indeed I could not explain them in ordinary material, political or historical terms at all. This is not how human history ordinarily operates.

I could not explain the way the Western world simply switched, from being based at least overtly on values of human rights and decency, to values of death, exclusion and hatred, overnight, en masse — without resorting to reference to some metaphysical evil that goes above and beyond fallible, blundering human agency… Continue reading “Naomi Wolf on the Return of Ancient Demonic Gods in the West”

Just Published by Kairos Research Centre! Christianity and the Social Order by Dr. Ng Kam Weng

CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL ORDER
By Dr. Ng Kam Weng

350 pages, 8.3” x 5.8” x 0.85”
ISBN: 978-629-97691-0-1 Continue reading “Just Published by Kairos Research Centre! Christianity and the Social Order by Dr. Ng Kam Weng”

Exposing Academic Nonsense and Intellectual Impostures

The “Sokal Affair” (1996) was an expose pulled off by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University when he submitted for publication, a grand-sounding spoof article “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” He claimed in the article that postmodern science based on theories by Jacques Lacan and Iris Irigaray demonstrates that quantum gravity within the framework of reality as a social and linguistic construct and its multidimensional manifolds topological space, transgresses the concept of objective truth and thus provides “powerful intellectual support for the progressive project, understood in its broadest sense: transgressing of boundaries, the breaking down of barriers. the radical democratization of all aspects of social, economic, political, and cultural life.”*  The article was accepted and published by the postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text (Duke University Press) in 1996. The publication of a spoof article laced spurious physics by an established journal became a scandal. It also confirmed that much of postmodern theories is just academic nonsense or in the words of Sokal, “intellectual impostures.” Continue reading “Exposing Academic Nonsense and Intellectual Impostures”

Was there a Palestinian State in History? The Historical Facts

In this post, I shall focus only on historical facts and will not be making any definitive moral judgment on the current war between Hamas & Israel.

Without a doubt, the name Palestine was used before the founding of the state of modern Israel in 1948. There are maps from the 19th century which have the name Palestine printed over the region of the Holy Land. However, the name Palestine was used to describe a geographical area rather than an independent state or a region defined as a specific administrative region.

The word Palestine was derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who migrated to the Mediterranean coastal plain between Tel Aviv-Yafo and the Gaza Strip in the 12th century BC. These Aegean people have no genealogical connection recent Palestinian people. The Philistines disappeared from history after they were destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia 2600 years ago. The Jews who were exiled to Babylon resettled in the land  under the Persian Empire and reestablished Jerusalem as their capital. The Romans who destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD and crushed the last Jewish revolt (the Bar Kokhba revolt, 132-136 AD) applied the term Palaestina to Judea in order to erase any Jewish legitimate claim to the land of Israel. The Arabic word Filastin is derived from this Latin name. Continue reading “Was there a Palestinian State in History? The Historical Facts”

Biden’s LGBT Inspired “Equality Act” Will Drive the Church From the Public Arena

 

Many Malaysian Christians who rely on CNN (aka the Democrats’ Ministry of Truth) for ‘news’ on the recent USA elections were gleeful when Biden won. I wonder how they would react to the so-called “Equality Act” which Biden has pledged to push through Congress in his first 100 days of power. Of course these Christians did not see the writing on the wall, given their great faith in CNN. This is only the beginning of Biden and the Democrats’ campaign to drive the church away from the public arena. Continue reading “Biden’s LGBT Inspired “Equality Act” Will Drive the Church From the Public Arena”

Amazon Bans Authors Who are Critical of LGBT

The LGBT movement in the USA pretended to be fighting for equality and coexistence with traditional Christianity and conservative religious values. Now that it controls the economic, educational, entertainment and political institutions in the USA, it proceeds to snuff out any opposing views, especially the view of traditional biblical Christianity.
Example: Amazon bans books written by authors who are critical of the homosexual and transsexual movement:
Robert Gagnon, Anne Paulk, Ryan Anderson, Joseph Nicolosi, Joe Dallas, Alan Mendiger etc.
One observes related restrictions and bans by Google, Facebook & Pay Pal.

Continue reading “Amazon Bans Authors Who are Critical of LGBT”

A Prayer for the Year of the OX

WHAT MOST PEOPLE WANT FOR THE YEAR OF THE OX

WHAT A SIMPLE MAN LIKE ME WANTS – SHALOM, GRATITUDE & CONTENTMENT IN THE LORD

PRAYER OF THE OX

Dear God, give me time.
Men are always so driven!
Make them understand that I can never hurry.
Give me time to eat.
Give me time to plod.
Give me time to sleep.
Give me time to think.

From “Prayers from the Ark: The Creatures’ Choir.” By Carmen Bernos & De Gasztold

WISHING MY FRIENDS AND THEIR FAMILIES A BLESSED GOD-FILLED YEAR OF THE OX