Year 2012, St Louis, US.
It was the last class in PhD program that I took at the Concordia seminary. It was called “Sin and Evil” taught by my beloved professor Dr Robert Kolb.
We had students from all continents and one of the topics for the course was spiritual warfare. Among the students we had a handful of African theologians and pastors.
When we got to the topic of the spiritual warfare everyone turned towards them: “Okay, tell us more about it!” But then, they said something that greatly surprised us.
They said that the greatest spiritual warfare of our times is being waged in the West, and it is nothing else than the deliberate attack on the only human institution given to us by the Creator in the very beginning, namely – marriage.
Today I am convinced that it is true. Fine… But how can we see it?
I will offer a brief summary, and it is just a brief summary. We live in the aftermath of deep cultural revolution, of what is often called “sexual revolution”.
I wonder whether it is more accurate to say that this “revolution” continues, for it has certainly morphed, and shifted its goals, but it is carried on as passionately as ever. We may not be aware of it, which makes us even more susceptible to its harmful influences.
Have you heard about the Salami tactics? It is like cutting Salami in thin slices; you cut of one, no difference, cut off another, no noticeable difference, and so you keep going… Until there is nothing left. That’s Salami tactics.
Similarly, slices have been cut from Biblical understanding of marriage which in one or another shape of form dominated accross the Christendom.
Creator’s design for our marriages is rich and beautiful, there is a lot in it, the whole package, the whole bouquet of good things and we will learn about them later in this course.
So, how were those good things sliced away? What were those cultural factors and trends that contributed to the confusion in which we live today? We will look at 8 of them.
Can you guess a few of them? Most of them should be familiar to us; some of them we may have embraced just as a part of our culture.
To be continued...
Watch video and engage conversations on “Wisdom 4 Relationships” course.
It was the last class in PhD program that I took at the Concordia seminary. It was called “Sin and Evil” taught by my beloved professor Dr Robert Kolb.
We had students from all continents and one of the topics for the course was spiritual warfare. Among the students we had a handful of African theologians and pastors.
When we got to the topic of the spiritual warfare everyone turned towards them: “Okay, tell us more about it!” But then, they said something that greatly surprised us.
They said that the greatest spiritual warfare of our times is being waged in the West, and it is nothing else than the deliberate attack on the only human institution given to us by the Creator in the very beginning, namely – marriage.
Today I am convinced that it is true. Fine… But how can we see it?
I will offer a brief summary, and it is just a brief summary. We live in the aftermath of deep cultural revolution, of what is often called “sexual revolution”.
I wonder whether it is more accurate to say that this “revolution” continues, for it has certainly morphed, and shifted its goals, but it is carried on as passionately as ever. We may not be aware of it, which makes us even more susceptible to its harmful influences.
Have you heard about the Salami tactics? It is like cutting Salami in thin slices; you cut of one, no difference, cut off another, no noticeable difference, and so you keep going… Until there is nothing left. That’s Salami tactics.
Similarly, slices have been cut from Biblical understanding of marriage which in one or another shape of form dominated accross the Christendom.
Creator’s design for our marriages is rich and beautiful, there is a lot in it, the whole package, the whole bouquet of good things and we will learn about them later in this course.
So, how were those good things sliced away? What were those cultural factors and trends that contributed to the confusion in which we live today? We will look at 8 of them.
Can you guess a few of them? Most of them should be familiar to us; some of them we may have embraced just as a part of our culture.
To be continued...
Watch video and engage conversations on “Wisdom 4 Relationships” course.
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