Lost all sense of morality, security, and innocence

As promised... Here are a few shareables from the beginning of 'A Non-Anxious Presence' by Mark Sayers...

In the introduction he opens with this quote from Hermann Hesse:

"There are times when a whole generation gets caught to such an extent between two eras, the styles of life, that nothing comes naturally to it since it has lost all sense of morality, security, and innocence."

Man, does that not describe where we are right now (at least in the United States, but also largely the world)? I guess the good news - if you can call it that - is that this isn't the first time we've been here...

Chapter 1 talks about the end of an era. As he says on p. 21, "When reframed, the phase that feels like destruction, mayhem, and death is the moment just before birth... We are moving into our in-between moment, in which the usual rules do not apply..." (and this creates anxiety) 

One example of changing eras is: War used to be fought almost solely on a kinetic level (shooting and blowing up the enemy). Now there are so many other forms of war: cyber, information, legal, criminal, psychological, economic, etc. 

His point in this section is that we have not yet entered a new era; instead we have entered an in-between phase, a "gray zone." The Gray Zone is the overlap period between two eras.

So, our challenge now as christians (and he is more specifically focusing on leaders) is to follow an unchanging God, who is advancing His kingdom in this gray zone moment. This is where we currently live... morality, security, and innocence seem like things of the past. But are they???

As noted in chapter 2 (30), "...what may look like decline, loss, or even obliteration can be revival's launching pad."

(31) "There is a longing among God's people to see His church live out its potential." ... "When viewed through a biblical lens, gray zones often precede renewal and rebirth."

In chapter 3 Sayers covers a previous era which contained what historian Tom Standage labeled the 'Victorian Internet.' Standage said this new wave of information supplied by the ... TELEGRAPH... "was like a drug to businessmen, who swiftly became addicted." And, like all drugs, there was a powerful side effect -- anxiety. (remind you of anything today?)

This section was pretty enlightening to me about the history of the world as we know it - and the role of information processing, the introduction of the middle class, and as Sayers says, the role "comfortable, prosperous, and stable times" played in creating not only anxious people, but a culture of anxiety.

So, this was a brief overview of section one. The next section of the book addresses how secular society attempted to remake the world during those tumultuous times...