A Verse from Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1

9 The thing that hath been, it is that which

shall be; and that which is done is that which

shall be done: and there is no new thing under

the sun.

10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said,

See, this is new? it hath been already of old

time, which was before us.

11 There is no remembrance of former things;

neither shall there be any remembrance of things

that are to come with those that shall come

after.


In conversation yesterday, I said something about

the hypocrisy that's evident at all levels of

society, and particularly related to marriage.

Social metrics support that conclusion, although

there may be other conclusions drawn from the

metrics as well. I'm married so I kinda' notice

the conventions that apply. You see, it's no

longer conventional to do what's right. The

standard is set by what everyone else does. It's

about appearances rather than substance. That's

also known as hypocrisy -- pretending to be

something that you're not. Even though it's

popular, it gives way to all kinds of other

undesireable behaviors, like fraud, deception and

lies. As it is in relation to larger society, so it

is in relation to marriage. Oh, I've heard lots

of stories about how hypocrisy lends misery to

other's lives.


But today's post isn't really about hypocrisy as

much as it is about the effects. Like Newton's

Law of motion, there is a cause and effect

relationship at work in social behavior. What

strikes me this morning, is the persistence of

the idea that seems to plague every generation --

We have a new and improved version and vision of

society. Read the passage above from

Ecclesiastes. Many, if not most, of our social

institutions labor under the belief that we've

found a better way. As it's embraced by a

majority, it gains the respectability of popular

practice, a de facto standard. Yet, looking at

history we see that it's never worked out that

way before. Fortunately, nobody seems bothered

by the illustration of epic failures in the

record of history. (we're smarter than those

guys.) See, it really is different now, or at

least we pretend it is.


The ancient hebrew prophets stuck to the record

of history and declared that in terms of the

moral absolutes of creation, nothing ever

changes. Except for the mentally deficient or

unstable, people don't go around declaring that

the laws of physics are outdated and we've

discovered perpetual motion and anti-gravity.

Even if perpetual motion and anti-gravity are

discovered, that still won't change the laws of

physics. There may be an effort to reinterpret

the laws of physics, but it won't disrupt the

order of the universe, it'll just upset our

understanding of that order. Science has gone

through those upsets in the past, one of the most

famous being Galileo's observation on the motion

of the planets around the sun. This weeks

remembrance of Solzhenitsyn brings to mind that

he, like the ancient prophets, recognized the

error of believing that things are different in

the here and now. Although it's not explicit in

his address to Harvard's grad's in 1978, I think

one implication is that there are moral

absolutes.


Here's a link:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html


As I understand it, what Solzhenitsyn does say is

that materialism is no substitute for moral

virtue, and that they will not arrive at the same

destination. And my observation is that, just

like a prostitute, we will gladly exchange virtue

for material reward. It's the same metaphorical

image that the ancient prophets made use of.

Babylon (the kingdom of man) is the great harlot.

Jerusalem (the kingdom of heaven) is the bride

of Christ. This metaphor brings attention to the

fact that it's one or the other, and no person is

able to play both the role of the harlot and the

bride.


REV. 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name

written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER

OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.(KJV)


You see, as much as we wish to believe that we

can dispense with moral absolutes, it just

doesn't work that way. Marriage, as an

illustration of the kingdom of heaven, is not

going to produce it's intended level of

satisfaction when it's treated with hypocritical

disregard. You can't fake everything. The laws

of social order, and moral absolutes, have never

changed.