What messages are our young people receiving?
Mostly they come from the media - sports and entertainment, and from the music industry.
The messages they receive from sports are: work harder or suffer pain, winning is everything, winner takes all, you've got to be tough, show no weakness, and show no mercy.
The messages from entertainment and music are dark indeed.
They are rife with darkness, death, and evil.
You have to be more ruthless than the wicked.
And you only ever think about yourself.
The rest is advertising.
This pushes the idea that more things will make you happy.
More possessions, better tickets, faster cars, bigger houses.
This is materialism gone viral.
This is quite apart from the play-hard messages of drugs, alcohol, and sex.
So what awaits them in the future?
I can only say that they will suffer.
For none of these things leads to true happiness.
There is an urgent need for a new message.
That message is that love, consideration, justice, and equality lead to greater happiness.
And this message comes from God.
There is an urgent need for religions to cast aside their messages of fear, hate, punishment, and damnation.
God is
not a moral arbiter.
We are
not born absolutely sinful.
We are
not in need of salvation.
The only salvation we need is from our own culture.
And this is what the Kingdom of God looks like:
Equality, justice, consideration, and love.
Photo Credit:
jeff_golden via
Compfight cc
