Weekly Pastoral Message prepared by Rev. Murray Adamthwaite
for Sunday 24th August 1997

From the Pastor: Wisdom and Folly III

It used to be said that our twentieth century was an "enlightened time", what with our education for all classes, science, space exploration, advanced moral sense which disowned war as a solution to international problems, and level of informed debate on the issues of the day. Yet for all this there is a fascination with the occult and the grossest forms of superstition: not merely the old forms of superstition regarding the number 13 or the four leaf clover, but serious and highly dangerous forms. Thus we see all around us Ouidja boards, Tarot cards, Horoscope charts; then veneration of heathen statues or "Mother Earth", and a fascination with the tenets of Buddhism. Education has not saved us from the reappearance of these! What has happened to bring about this reversal from the situation of two generations ago? Two comments can safely be offered: 1. The older so-called "Scientific Humanism" which never admitted a spiritual dimension to existence, but for whom everything was matter and natural cause, has largely given way to "New Age Humanism". This sees man as having inner spiritual potential to realize almost limitless possibilities (cf. Genesis 3:5). While the older version is still present in such groups as "Australian Skeptics", its influence is waning. 2. The underlying reason is that as men have increasingly rejected the Living God, He in turn has given them up to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:26). In their folly they imagine that they can escape this law of Divine adminstration, but it is happening before our eyes. Rather than trust in education and civilization, it is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which is the power of God to salvation from superstition (Romans 1:16). Thus it has done so wherever it has gone.