Discerning Learning

By Brenda Black

Third row, aisle seat. Notebook open, pencil sharp. Hand in the air, eyes looking forward, ears ready to hear. I love to learn! Over the course of my life in classrooms large and small, for academic, spiritual, professional or personal instruction, I have come prepared to concentrate, participate and postulate. By and large, I believe I received sound instruction from most teachers. When I did question the integrity or morality of a subject, I enlisted common sense and godly discernment to sift the input.

Now, more than ever, with the onslaught of instant information from both reliable and down right corrupt sources, and not-so-subtle social agendas, it is vital that every student be keenly observant and brutally critical as they head back to school. The human mind and heart are under intellectual and moral attack.

Christina Hoff Sommers, professor of philosophy at Clark University, warned her audience in a speech delivered nearly 14 years ago at the Shavano Institute for National Leadership that the mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste.

“Too many young people are morally confused, ill-informed, and adrift. This confusion gets worse rather than better once they go to college. If they are attending an elite school, they can actually lose their common sense and become clever and adroit intellectuals in the worst sense. George Orwell reputedly said, 'Some ideas are so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.' Well, the students of such intellectuals are in the same boat. Orwell did not know about the tenured radicals of the 1990s, but he was presciently aware that they were on the way. The problem is not that young people are ignorant, distrustful, cruel, or treacherous. And it is not that they are moral skeptics. They just talk that way. To put it bluntly, they are conceptually clueless. The problem I am speaking about is cognitive. Our students are suffering from 'cognitive moral confusion.'” (Read more of Sommers' observations)

This moral confusion poses the greatest risk to all that has made America strong. While many among today's generation mindlessly compromise and conform, the burden to rebuild a strong moral base has to come from those willing to impart truth and expose the subtle and divisive attacks on the moral conscience of all. We must remind ourselves of the radical agendas of people like Joseph Stalin who once said, “America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: It's patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”

Where's the patriotism today? How's the morality? What about a spiritual hunger? Are we passing the test to stay a free thinking and morally motivated nation or are we failing miserably?

As students head back to school, those going and those sending better drop to their knees in prayer. For ideas will be many and agendas aggressive, but each of us has the moral responsibility to do what's right and employ divine discernment. Yes, there is a right and a wrong. We each must answer to God. Educating the heart as well as the mind to live according to biblical standards is the only way we can get back on track and not “collapse from within.”

Isaiah states its simply: “Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!” (Isaiah 1:16b-17a) In subsequent verses, the wise prophet relays the Lord's instructions for how to get it “right.” “'Come now, let us reason together,' says the Lord. 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.' For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Ish. 1:18-20)

Learn with discernment.

A Conflict of Conscience

A Conflict of Conscience
By Brenda Black

Visions of Tweety Bird's Grandmother beating off Sylvester popped into my mind when I scanned a recent headline: “Thief Mugs 90-Year-Old, Gives Back Purse.” In the movie Madagascar, Granny's contemporary cartoon cousin just as fiercely wallops Alex the Lion in the middle of Grand Central Station. Though the two animated nanas slung their purses and wielded their canes, this real-life 90-year-old Kansan wisely called for back-up when a man grabbed her purse and ran.

The woman called a neighbor and told him what happened. They returned near the scene of the crime and spied the robber going through her purse. The neighbor called police, then started honking his horn at the man. The mugger walked over to the car and after a brief conversation, handed over some of the victim's personal items before running. Police said all of the 90-year-old's personal property was recovered and she was not hurt, but the criminal has not been caught.

Wouldn't you love to know what was said through that car window. What compels a man to wrangle a purse from a little old woman? Is it depravity or cowardice. And what drives him to undo the damage? Conscience or bravery. Did he apologize. Did he tell her of his dire needs and plead for mercy. I'd sure like to know.

Our times are desperate for many people. Even the good can go bad when they reach a point of fearful frustration. But there is a moral compass. No matter what new age religiosity or faith of the day teaches, mankind is accountable and created to know the difference between right and wrong. Those standards are not based on personal gain. They are not established in philosophy think tanks. The fundamental absolutes are mandated by God himself. He is truth.

Somewhere in the conscience and heart of this criminal, that compass spun out of control. After vibrating nervously between poles, the magnetic force of good pulled him due north. Hopefully he will not waiver again. Hopefully he will see his mishap as motivation to stay the course with good moral judgment. Hopefully, the reason for his desperation will be met with provision by honest means. And hopefully he will seek Christ Jesus for forgiveness.

We are all susceptible to wavering from what we know is right. In an instance, we can go against our best moral judgment. In a moment of frustration, we too can react improperly. After stewing and brewing over mistreatment, we can retaliate on an innocent bystander, taking from them what we have had stolen from us. We would all be depraved and desperate without God's divine moral compass, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23)

Our hope for honest living comes by submitting to God's rules. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
(1 Corinthians 10:13)

Sure, this robber was caught in the act. In the glare of a car's headlights his sins were revealed. The blaring of a horn announced to the world his dastardly behavior. But he faced the light and walked to the car and laid his sin in the lap of the lady.

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:11-14)

If you want a clear conscience, “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5b)