Southside Oracle Archive

Vol. 50, No. 19                    SOUTHSIDE ORACLE                    July 13, 2007

The Bulletin Board

            Camp Notes - Our middle campers at the Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp will be returning home this weekend. Intermediate Camp begins Sunday. Campers planning to attend are Zach Giemza, Hailey Slye, Sydney Miller, Hannah Shilts, Chad Mudd, and Lulu Valdez. Mike and Julie Shuster will be working on the staff.

            Guest speaker - Justin Worley of the Elkhorn Church will be our speaker at both morning services Sunday. His lesson will be entitled, "The Prodigal Brother." Monroe Hawley will preach in the evening.

            Tween Car Wash - Our tweens (pre-teens) will conduct a free car wash on the church parking lot on Saturday, July 21' beginning at 10:30 a.m. This is an opportunity for them to serve. Bring your car and help them do so.

ATTENDANCE RECORD

(*) first service, 132; second service 59

            Mark your calendar for the inter-congregational picnic at Kletzsch Park on August 11th.

Calendar of Events

July 1- 14 - Middle Camp, Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp, Fallhall Glen

July 15 - 28 - Intermediate Camp, Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp, Fallhall Glen

July 21- Tween free car wash, beginning at 10:30 a.m.

July 29 - August 11- Senior Camp, Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp, Fallhall Glen

August 6 - 10 - Midwest Family Encampment, Green Lake

August 11 - Inter-congregational picnic, 11:00 a.m., Kletzsch Park

August 12-16 - Quest all ages camp, Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp, Fallhall Glen

September 24 -26 - Midwest Preachers' Retreat, Fallhall Glen

Two Thousand Years Later

            The Apostle Paul once described the state of the society in which he lived: "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more" (Ephesians 4:18, 19).

            Does that description of society sound familiar? A few years ago the Journal/Sentinel carried an article by J. Peter Zane, book editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, entitled, “Mainstream pornography could be countered by new moral language." In it he decries what is happening today. "The marginal has become mainstream. Impulses once indulged in only at the risk of reputation have been de-stigmatized - as have mindless violence, unspeakable cruelty and gross deception. The days of shame and plain brown wrappers are over .... Few thinking people would suggest we return to the status quo ante, but who does not look at contemporary culture and shudder? Who feels that we can do something, anything, to correct it?"

            Zane then goes to the heart of the problem - the abandonment by society of its moral values. "Contemporary intellectual currents argue against our having any basis for making value judgments, for imposing restraint. Truth is seen as provisional, all claims of moral authority are interpreted as political assertions by groups seeking to dominate one another. `Pervert' and `deviant' are termed adjectives of repression while losing-side traditionalists who rail against naked reality are ridiculed as bigoted troglodytes."

            The writer then cites a statement from the novelist John Irving, "No writer or publisher or reader should accept censorship in any form; fundamental to our freedom of expression is that each of us has a right to decide what is obscene and what isn't." Zane continues, "As our society has surrendered its moral authority, our culture is, by default, being shaped by corporate entities that traffic in instant gratification. Sure, they are giving that mischievous id what it wants - who isn't fascinated by sex? But we also know that arousal isn't completely satisfying. A culture that feeds our bodies but not our souls leaves us yearning."

            Zane concludes his article by calling for "a persuasive new moral language, the first words of which have not yet been spoken." What the writer overlooks in his very perceptive article is that what is needed today is not a new moral language, but a return to the moral language of Jesus. The ethical values by which Christians seek to live have been given by God. No humanistic brain trust can succeed in designing another set of values that can effectively cope with the filth that is being thrust upon us daily through the media. For truly, as in the first century, people "have lost all sensitivity, given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more." Only by our calling the world to come to Jesus will we be able to cape with the moral cesspool surrounding us.

Monroe Hawley

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