Time to Come Down!

In a book written a few years ago called, “Adam and Eve and Pinocchio,” the author, an eminent psychiatrist, observes that the people of the Western World no longer look upon humanity as the masterpiece of Divine creation “in an ordered Universe.” Instead, he says, we of the Western World often describe ourselves as failures in a world of chaotic events. “We are losing faith,” he writes, “not only in our institutions, but in ourselves.” He says that unless we begin to “fully value and understand what makes us human, our culture is critically close to a tilt-point that could lead to our destruction.”

Whether or not we agree with the pessimistic tone of this book, if our self-esteem falls short of the Good News that we are infinitely precious in God’s eyes, that God loves us beyond our ability even to imagine, then something is out of order inside. And to the extent that we are failing ourselves in this way we are…