While writing essays and answering exam questions appears to a student to be merely a process of evaluation imposed by the school system it is much more than that. Essay writing and written answers to questions rely upon skills that are highly valuable in life and career.

These explanatory notes will explain some of the key issues related to essay writing and written answers to questions, hopefully prompting intelligent development and application of the appropriate skills, not just in the school context but into adult life and career.

1.         Core Skills.

The core skills relied upon in writing essays and exam answers, and throughout the rest of your life, are:
a) Observation, comprehension, understanding and memory of the source content under investigation (book, movie, article) and the exam question or essay topic, including ability to make relevant quotations.
b) Analysis, reflection, interpretation, evaluation and re-expression of the ideas conveyed or prompted by the source content under investigation and also in the exam question or essay topic.
c) Comparison of ideas or expressions, which shows that you have observed and comprehended and also interpreted and analysed what you have observed, seeing the distinctions between the elements being compared.
d) Communication, organisation of thought, clear expression and convincing argument.
e) Extent of ideas, including originality and insight, arguments for and against a point, ability to accommodate various and divergent perceptions and keep them in balance and how widely read and rich the student’s information is.
f) Underlying language tools, such as spelling, grammar, vocabulary, technical terminology, clarity (without ambiguity or vagueness) and presentation skills.

2.         Presentation.

While this may seem a lesser consideration it is true that clarity of presentation requires clarity of thought and so it is always a good starting point.

Note that this article starts with a Heading, followed by a sub-heading, and includes identification of the author and date. The opening sentences explain the subject matter of the article and its purpose. A reader will quickly know whether they wish to read this article or if it is the one they were seeking.

Poorly identified documents can be overlooked or lost or fail to get the attention they deserve.

This is not an exam skill, but a requisite life skill, to clearly and accurately identify documents and the content therein. Get into the habit of doing this automatically whether required or not. If it is inappropriate make the exception for that answer.

At the top of your essay or assignment put the relevant information of Subject, Class, Topic, your name, date and so on.

Eg: SOCIAL SCIENCE, Yr 10, Mid Term Exam, Cultural Diversity, May 5, 2014, Billy Smith Class 10J.
Question 1: Primary Culture in Australia.
While cultural diversity exists within communities and even within each cultural group there is usually a primary culture overriding all other cultural elements. In Australia that primary culture can be seen …….

3.         Clarity.

The first sentence or two in an essay or exam answer should (unless a very short answer is required) restate the topic or question in some way, so the reader or examiner can be confident you are answering the right question.

This is also a checkpoint for yourself, to ensure you are doing the right thing. There is no prize for writing an exam question where you wrongly understood the question.

4.         Interpret the Question or Topic.

If you get the question wrong or do not fully answer it you are throwing points away and wasting your time.

Observe what the question or topic asks, interpret it, keep all the parts in mind and in their place, organise your thoughts and then express them effectively.

Eg: Assignment Question – Using Examples from the Source Material (Text / Article / Chapter) Describe two different processes that produce the result.
Note that this question asks for EXAMPLES and DESCRIPTION of TWO things that are DIFFERENT. You must provide all those elements or you cannot expect your optimum score.

If you are struggling to answer a question, at least show the examiner that you UNDERSTAND the question. Refer to the elements mentioned in the question (examples, description, 2, different).

5.         Do what is Required. Follow Instructions.

Most essay and exam questions will ask for a specific performance from the student.

One level of question simply asks you to Describe or Give Examples. This checks that you know the material. Quotations, summary statements and listing the core elements of the material will be helpful here, to show that you do know the material.

Another level of question asks you to Discuss, Address, Analyse, Compare or Explain something. This type of question checks your ability to analyse, comprehend, see the implications, make assessments, filter the material through some kind of lens or otherwise interpret the material.
In most classes teachers tend to feed students sufficient examples of what is required such that an astute student can usually pass an exam by re-presenting those thoughts already presented in class.

Higher level students will have taken the teacher’s observations and promptings as a springboard for their own insights and analysis, and their essay or answer to a question will include original thought, and/or more widely read understanding, likely gaining them higher marks.

Be sure you keep an eye on the question and do what it asks. If you must give 2 examples, then do so. If you must present your own thoughts or impressions then do so.

Eg: Exam Question: 10 Second Dash.
“You have 10 seconds only to answer this question.
Read the whole question before answering.
State Your First Name: ________________.
Year you started at this school: __________________.
Current Class: ______________________.
Favourite Sport: _________________.
Mother’s maiden name: ________________.
Father’s Occupation: _______________________.
Names of Siblings: ________________________________________________.
Hair Colour: _______________________.
Do not write anything on this page.”

How is it the police are our enemy when they are supposed to bless us by protecting us?

What has been done to justice when the Justice Department spends so much of its time harassing us, entrapping us, making strange and unfounded judgments against us and upholding all manner of silly claims against us?

Do you really want to know?

Common Law Obligations

Under Common Law you can be held guilty for various things. But apart from a few responsibilities toward others you are blessed with abundant rights that can’t be taken from you (inalienable) because they were given to you by God when you were created.

Despite your rights and freedoms you are obligated not to harm others, or to harm their property, and also to keep your word.

Your Common Law obligations are toward others: not to harm them; not to harm their property; and not to break your word to them.

Keeping Your Word

The reason keeping your word is a Common Law obligation is because you can hurt others by breaking your word.

If you promise to do something and others rely on you they are vulnerable to harm if you don’t keep your word. If you don’t buy what you promised to buy the seller may miss a genuine sale to another customer. If you don’t marry the girl you promised to marry you may cause her a life of heartbreak. If you don’t deliver the medicine you promised the patient may die.

So your word is a potential source of “harm” to others, just as your fist, or your unchained bull may be. If you cause injury then you have broken a Common Law obligation.

Making a Slave of You

Centuries ago certain men who were looking only for their own interests realised they could use your obligation to keep your word to enslave you and make you pass your wealth to them.

They could do it by trapping you into a contract that was in their favour. If they could induce you into a commercial contract where you gave your word, and then get you in default, having broken your promise, then they could drag you before the courts and force you to pay what they claimed.

This is a perversion of the Common Law obligation to keep your word. It is also evil and wrong, despite the fact that a good case may be presented in court.

Intention

What makes the evil commercial contract so wrong is that its intention was never to create a positive, mutually acceptable contract for mutual benefit, but to entrap, enslave and destroy one party for the benefit of another.

Thus commercial law emerged as a powerful element of law over recent centuries. Terms like ‘law merchant’ reflect that body of law based around commercial contracts.

Before God, who is Chief Justice over all justice, the heart is under observation. God looks on the heart. God deems a contract to be evil if the heart of the one creating it is to exploit or harm another. The prophets of old and the Son of God Himself warned us that God looks on the heart.

Presumption of Contract

The evil of commercial law enslaving others has developed further in today’s western world to the Presumption of Contract. Rather than trap people in a fraudulent contract we are today trapped by contracts we didn’t even know we entered.

In order to exploit you other parties, including our governments and government agencies, induce us into presumed contracts and then respond as if we knowingly entered into bondage to them. When those parties deem us to be in default they then drag us before the courts and we are somehow found guilty of things we did not know we were bound to.

What is more, we are not given much chance if any to defend ourselves because we are deemed to be guilty from the moment someone points their finger at us and declares us guilty, such as a traffic cop, parking attendant, local council employee. or similar.

No Escape

We are no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty, but we are guilty the moment someone accuses us. That’s how it is with police traffic offences, parking tickets and so on.

We may well get an unsolicited letter in the mail declaring that we have been found guilty of this or that and the fine is such and such. When we write back or phone to find out what it is about we discover that the only options we are given relate to how we will pay, not how the other party will prove their claim. The claim is taken to be true, without proper judicial process and thus trampling on our common law rights and natural justice.

We are treated like slaves who have to obey our masters, rather than people with God-given freedom who are immune from false and evil claims, protected by justice and the guarantee of our rights (such as our monarch is bound to give through Magna Carta and other ancient promises).

Contract Wins

One reason things go like that is because it has been declared that Contracts are higher in standing than our common law rights.

It is possible for you to contract to give up your common law rights. So Contract stands higher than those rights. Or, to put it more correctly, your will stands higher than your rights. You have the right to choose by your own will to give up your rights.

You can choose to be a slave, or to pay for someone else’s crime (as in Tale of Two Cities, or the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ). Your freedom is so powerful it includes the right to give up freedom itself.

And by extension of that, if you enter a contract by your own free will, that contract stands higher than any rights you may have given up.

Pretended Contracts

If someone can trick you into a contract, or bluff you that you are bound by a contract you didn’t knowingly enter and didn’t know the full terms and conditions of, then you can be made an absolute slave, based on the idea that contract is supreme.

So governments and corporations, police forces, local councils, and all manner of other regulators are busy as all get-out tangling you into their contracts. When you respond to their absurd letter of demand or their unexpected and unjust charges and fines, they will tell you that you are bound by this or that rule to do what they demand. No matter how much you huff and puff you seem to get nowhere. If you stall and delay you find that unexpected additional penalties have been imposed. When you object you are told that your complaint has been reviewed and refused.

And you just don’t seem to be able to break this nexus. You find yourself enslaved by all manner of constrictions which your parents and grandparents never thought of, and you are at the mercy of pen-pushers and self-interested parties who seem to have the right to dictate your fate.

It’s Presumption

The whole house of cards is built on Presumption. They presume to have power over you. They presume that you are in contract with them. They presume that you are bound by their decision, no matter how one-sider or evil, or how filled with self-interest it may be.

They presume you have voluntarily given up your rights and freedoms to them, and they intimidate you if you don’t comply with their presumption.

You are Presumed Dead. And they treat you like a corpse.

Most people simply give up and play dead, because they fear the consequences of challenging what seems to be evil.

Dead in the Head

Your problem is that they are not so far wrong. If you are dead in the head, if you are willing to lie down and let them trample on you, then they have every right to treat you like a carcase at their disposal.

If you let them make contract with you, presume that you are their slave, and walk all over you, then that’s probably OK. I mean, if you choose to accept that contract then you can accept it. You can’t exactly argue against it if you accept the terms and conditions and allow them to bind you into an evil contract.

It’s your life, and it’s your will. If you WILL for it to be so, by lying down and letting them enslave you, then I guess that’s the CONTRACT you have entered into. It’s the terms you have accepted.

As someone once put it, what you suffer is what you want. If you didn’t want it you would not suffer it. So if you accept others treating your like a slave, then you must actually want to be a slave deep on the inside. It would be wrong for me to deny you what you want.

Or Stand Up

The alternative is to wake up to what is going on and to stand up and say, “No”.

You can challenge the presumed contract and demand that they prove it. You can reserve your rights rather than letting them trample all over you.

You can declare that there is no contract and that you don’t consent, and they must prove that you knowingly entered into contract with them and accepted the terms. You can demand that they give you full disclosure of the contract they are offering and allow you to modify the terms to suit you, rather than the terms that suit them.

But don’t expect that they will give up their slave easily. There may well be a fight about their right to hold you to their will.

And then you must decide whether you really believe you are free, or if you are just looking for some easy way out of some bills and obligations.

That’s the deal. The rest is up to you.

Any Good Men?

The way evil prevails is if good men do nothing.

Are there any good men out there?

Significant in this launch were interesting claims made by Mr Shin early in his speech. His words, albeit muddied by his Korean accent, bring to mind parallel ideas presented in the Bible. And through his comments we are presented with the idea of Technology as an Idol in today’s world.

The worship of technology is not a new theme. The late Apple guru Steve Jobs, himself a master of marketing hype, gave today’s generation a sense for the mystique and fervor created by technology. But in generations past technology had earlier showmen and its showcase moments where eager consumers salivated over the promise of new qualities of life made possible by new technology, or “applied science” as they knew it then.

The great Fairs and Expo events of past centuries put on display amazing technological tools that were to transform day to day life. Car shows, computer shows, electrical appliance shows and all manner of other such events are and have always been energized by display of the latest and greatest.

And with each new technology comes the embedded promise of a better life, more efficient processes, more free time, greater productivity and so on.

Through that cavalcade of promise upon promise, breakthrough upon breakthrough, technology upon technology, innovation upon innovation, technology itself has been paraded before us as an Idol.

Technology has become to the secular culture the tool of man’s salvation. Technology is the key to longer, happier life. Technology is the answer to man’s problems.

Early last century Aldus Huxley even extolled technology as the deliverer of the Brave New World where moral constraint, unhappiness, unwanted impositions and human limitation would be thrown aside by ‘applied science’, aka technology.

So we should not be surprised to hear technology described in the most glowing terms and attributed with qualities previously reserved for the divine. And that’s what we do hear in Mr Chin’s ululations.

When Mr Chin took to the stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall before an adoring crowd of smartphone devotees he prefaced the introduction of the S4 with words of significant tenor.

He explained that Samsung has brought together innovation with the wishes of the public to create something that was now at a new level as applied technology.

“We have taken technology and innovation to help us get closer to what matters in life. To help us live a richer, simpler and more full life.”

“It is the innovation that improves the way people truly live every day and helps them live in the way they aspire to.”

“A device that enables us to do more. A companion that helps us to experience life to the fullest. A life companion for a richer, simpler life.”

These are heady claims, but they may actually prove true within the limits of what inanimate technology can provide. That will be judged by users over time.

But these claims resonate with meaning attributed thousands of years ago to divine experience.

Jesus Christ made the claim, “I am come to give life and life that is more abundant”.

Jesus also claimed that He would send to His followers the divine person of the Holy Spirit who would reside inside their lives and be to each of them a personal support agent, called a parakletos in the Greek language of the day.

Jesus also promised that He would give His followers divine peace that would not be given on the same terms as the world gives things.

So Mr Chin’s glowing accolades showered upon his company’s machine echoes the more profound spiritual promises made by the Son of God.

Is technology therefore not an idol? Is it not a substitute for the more powerful and more valuable experience available through spiritual technology?

Has the world lost sight of that which is real and replaced it with that which is an illusion of substance?

Can a smartphone provide for us lifestyle support that in any way matches the life-changing impact of Jesus Christ as Saviour, Almighty God as Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit as resident comforter?

Is the world being sold a bogus bill of goods by fawning over mere devices, while failing to seek the far more powerful and truly life-changing impact of eternal life?

What does it say about us that we exult in a new technology, while abandoning the power and presence of Almighty God in our lives and culture?

Is it that we have erected new temples and that we fall down before new idols, invoking their powers to alleviate our ills and confer blessings in ways that only God can truly do?

Have we made technology an idol?

And if so, how do we get God back on the throne in each of our hearts?

Blocking man’s freedom to indulge at will his base passions, for sex, self-gratification, self-will, independence, irresponsibility and the like, were impositions that came from God, family, society and nature.

God, as the Bible reveals Him, is a perfect moral being who created man and thus to whom man is morally accountable. Every act, thought and word of man is therefore brought under moral constraint, frustrating selfish desire and irresponsible and immoral pursuit of self-will.

Family, as child and sibling in our parental home and then as spouse and parent in our own home, causes us to be imposed upon by the expectations, demands, personality and responses of our family members. Selfish actions cause us to come into conflict with those closest to us and to receive disapproval from and cause hurt to those we are most closely bonded to emotionally. We also suffer the indignity of being judged, accused and otherwise imposed upon by parent, sibling, spouse and child.

Society at large also has its order, which in the western world has been built upon Christian principles of morality. Society demands that we act responsibly and it acts as an extension of God’s authority over our lives, penalising us for certain actions that are deemed criminal.

Nature also provides cruel punishments for various indulgences, such as addiction to the drugs men use and sexually transmitted diseases which blight free sexual activity. Sexuality is also blighted by unwanted pregnancies. Overeating results in obesity. Over-indulgence in alcohol results in drunkenness and addiction. Indulging laziness results in loss of income. And so it goes.

Science to the Rescue

By midway through the twentieth century science had emerged as the hopeful saviour of humanism’s frustrated desire. Science offered both philosophical and practical solutions to humanism’s obstacles.

From the 1880’s publication and propagation of Darwin’s version of the Theory of Evolution promised a scientific explanation for the origins of man, and therefore allowed the god-rejecting conscience to reject fear of God’s moral judgment for man’s immoral selfishness.

Advances in hygiene and medicine progressively promised cures for mankind’s ills, and gave rise to the hope that those dreaded consequences of sexual exploits would also be conquered by medical science.

Education had proved itself able to elevate primitive and seemingly backward people into modern living standards and to embrace modern educated values. Thus education and enlightenment promised to be the source of continued elevation of mankind into an even more idealised state.

Psychological ideas promised power to alter man’s thinking and alleviate such things as guilt, shame, conscience and so on.

Marxist ideas of revolutionary overthrow of what exists to make way for what is better were widely disseminated.

Social and religious ideas, including the concept of marriage, were progressively accused of being mere products of primitive thinking in an evolutionary setting. The educated classes began to see that god, family, society and nature could be tamed and thus man liberated to indulge previously sinful and criminal behaviour.

It is interesting, then, to see that the Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s was the humanist ‘love-child’, expressing the revolutionary spirit of Marx, disregard for God, family and societal standards, and unbridled indulgence of desire, especially for sex, drugs and irresponsible living.

However the humanist hope was soon to crumble.

Crumbled Hope

Darwinian ideas of evolution continued to prove unsubstantiated and eventually unscientific, and were abandoned in pursuit of better hopeful explanations for man’s arrival without a Creator God.

Medical science has not continued to deliver great leaps in human health, and old, once-conquered diseases still hover on the edges of society, with newer, terrifying pandemic possibilities popping up from time to time.

Education has staggered to a halt. All of the pursuit of knowledge has done nothing to alleviate human suffering, social pain, depression, hopelessness, suicide and the many other social ills that enlightenment should have done away with. The educated are no happier nor more free and liberated than the ignorant.

Psychology failed to provide the keys to unlocking human happiness or removing human pain. Instead a plethora of unproven psychological ideas has swamped western society and myriad gurus of the mind have competed for their share of the market. Meanwhile a greater percentage of the population resorts to medication than ever before.

As for revolution it has proven powerless. Those who dived into liberation gained nothing but temporary indulgence, which they have to live with for the rest of their lives. The moral, emotional, relational and personal entanglements, pains, frustrations, regrets and bitterness are the same as ever, and those who were part of the revolution carry the greater pain and suffering in consequence.

What a Waste of Time

God was not dethroned by man’s defiance. Nature was not disempowered by man’s confidence. Morality was not remoulded by man’s insistence. Nothing has changed.

Man is inherently selfish and inclined to rebel against his Creator. That is as it has always been. God has placed us in a moral universe and that has not changed. Man’s mind is puny and vain, and that has not changed. Humility before God is wonderful, liberating and empowering, and that has not changed.

The humanist hope has crumbled.
But man’s hope in God is as strong and wonderful as ever.
Hope in God. That is the end of the matter.

The following notes were written for the benefit of students given Brave New World as a study text. They are provided here for anyone who may be interested.

While Aldus Huxley claims to have written Brave New World in reaction to the direction he saw American society and technology taking the whole world in the “roaring” 1920’s, as if Huxley himself did not subscribe to the values exposed in that Brave New World, it is clear that many readers see Huxley’s book as defining the parameters of an ideal humanist utopia which they subscribe to.

Evidence the work of David Pearce who created the Huxley.net website which focuses specifically on Brave New World. Pearce anticipates achievement of the Brave New World and has his own suggestions as to the appropriate drugs to replace Huxley’s ‘soma’ while he also keeps track of genetic manipulation capable of enabling man to be free from various ills. Pearce speaks of “paradise-engineering” to bring about a world where physical and mental pain are removed and new levels of ecstasy can be achieved.

Huxley’s Brave New World proves to be not a mere mockery of American social direction, but the clearest articulation of the humanist ideal.

With that in mind a review Huxley’s paradise gives many insights into the humanist imperative and the moral framework that inspires many in today’s society.

The Humanist Utopia

BRAVE NEW WORLD represents the cry of the humanist heart to escape from morality.

Utopia, as seen through the eyes of Huxley, involves total sexual liberation from the earliest age, total liberation from the consequence of sexual activity (through contraception and abortion), escape from morality, indulgence of every impulse quickly and completely, and removal of family, God and Christianity, in order to remove remorse, fear, guilt, shame, condemnation, and so on.

But this utopia has not been achieved.

The Judeo-Christian ethic which stands in contrast to humanism is that this is a MORAL UNIVERSE and all attempts to pretend otherwise will fail.

Humanist Heroes

Huxley invokes the prophets of his age who he sees as affirming the humanist myth of escape from morality.

They include: Freud’s insights that sexual repression (moral responsibility) spawns human ills; Haekel’s already debunked fraud about human development in the womb; Pavlov’s ideas of conditioning; ideas of programming of the human mind (believing that mind is the centre of the matter); chemical reductionism (all human behaviour is nothing more than a response to chemical or other stimuli within the biology); etc.

Huxley also, we must assume, holds to the Darwinian beliefs his own grandfather so virulently asserted.

So what of Huxley’s heroes? Darwin shrinks devoid of any of the evidence he expected and shrivelled by the unveiling of life’s complexities. Freud shrinks to just one of many competing voices crying in the psychological wilderness, with little currency in today’s eclectic world of psycho-babble. Haekel’s drawings were already exposed as fraud but have since been roundly exposed and deliberate deception. Pavlov’s salivating dogs have been displaced by all manner of psychological oddities and assumptions. Chemical reductionism has failed to stand as a credible explanation for human free will.

Comparing Humanist Artefacts in Huxley and Greene

Similarly to Richard Greene’s The Quiet American a humanist worldview is clearly evident in Brave New World, exposing the prevailing thought of the educated elite in the early part of last century. (Richard Greene’s The Quiet American is another literature text given to students to review.)

Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931 and through it, and through Huxley’s comments 15 years later in his 1946 Foreword, we are given insight into the ideas that influenced the cadre of writers, philosophers and world influencers of the first half of the twentieth century. Huxley saw himself as a member of the ‘intellectual class’ (Foreword 1946) and is hailed as writing one of the most significant texts of his day. So we can be justified in performing an autopsy on Huxley’s ideas and the thinking of that past era.
By such process we shall likely see insights into the value of those ideas and also possibly see how those ideas have morphed into ideas held by today’s educated elite.

While Huxley revolts at the direction Americanisation was relentlessly taking the rest of the world and the ultimate tyranny of his suggested outcome, he also holds to the humanist values that underpin that inherent direction of applied science as he prophetically saw it heading. Huxley’s prophetic insight was based on interpretation of the popular notions shared among the intellectual class of his day. Brave New World was nonetheless the utopia envisaged by the educated elite of Huxley’s day.

It is interesting to note parallels between Huxley’s bold suggestions of 1931 and the values expressed by Greene in his 1952 book, The Quiet American.
Two decades had not changed the prevailing ideas but had seen them become more ubiquitously and more a natural aspiration of the average educated man (represented by Greene’s characters).

To clarify an obvious connection note that Huxley’s utopia centred on sex and drugs and man’s ability to abandon responsibility.
The life of Greene’s main character, Thomas Fowler, is also centred on sex, drugs and exemption from past commitments.
Both Huxley and Greene see the need to address and dispense with the place and presence of the divine and both present an ideal of life free from the imposition of an external moral being.

Sex, drugs and irresponsibility found wider expression in the second half of last century with the explosion of the Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s.
The humanistic, self-indulgent rejection of morals that Huxley and Greene each presented and which were at one time the preserve of those pursuing a bohemian lifestyle, became a widespread cultural revolution that morphed into the many cultural and social issues of today.

In the 8 decades since Huxley’s expose of the humanist ideal we have seen progressive abandonment of the traditional Christian values promoted and upheld in the western world for centuries, and in consequence we have seen drug addiction, family breakdown, domestic violence, youth suicide, depression and other signs of social decline swell in significance and that humanist ideal become much more widely pursued.

What we see in the writings of Huxley and Greene and their peers is the rise of the religion of humanism in the west, swamping the values of Christianity which had undergirded western society for centuries.
To members of the ‘intellectual class’, defiance of God through reliance on scientific breakthrough would relieve them of moral responsibility and allow them to indulge their human passions readily and with impunity.
These intellectuals could have no higher existence than serving their own wishes and making contribution to the anti-God campaign.

The Huxley Calling

Aldus Huxley’s grandfather, Thomas Huxley, was so virulent a force in promoting evolution he was dubbed “Darwin’s Bulldog”.
Thus ‘defying God’ was a family tradition for the Huxley’s. Aldus knew that he too was to play his part.

Yet for all his bravado and evangelistic effectiveness, Darwin’s Bulldog is now exposed as selling an empty box.
None of Darwin’s concepts or expectations stood up to scientific scrutiny.
So much so that today’s evolutionists seek completely different possibilities for evolution than Darwin proposed.
The evidences promulgated so effectively by the elder Huxley have therefore clearly proven faulty.
Today’s evolutionists cannot yet provide any convincing proofs for their theory despite those proofs being sought in earnest for more than a century.

The elder Huxley spoke as an evangelistic voice selling a bag of goods that proved to be spurious.
We need not, thus, be squeamish about inspecting the younger Huxley’s bag of goods and testing the true nature of what he dished up to his audience educated in humanist thought and eager to have formal permission for their longed for self-serving lifestyle.

Applied Science

Huxley’s humanist world is anchored in what he calls ‘applied science’, which we would today simply call technology.
The Brave New World utopia could only come into existence through applied science empowering man to transcend such horrors as the fear of death, the aging process, family relationships, unwanted pregnancy, frustration of personal will, and addiction and other side effects of drug use.

Huxley’s fiction starts by first introducing us to the use of applied science to create man in the image of man’s choosing.
The Hatching and Conditioning factory involves a completely controlled artificial womb created by applied science, where temperature, chemical exposure and other stimuli are used to control the ultimate ‘human’ (or maybe subhuman) output.

More on the Humanist Heroes

In Huxley’s establishing scenes of man creating man to serve man’s will we gain insight into identity of the luminaries Huxley saw bringing applied science to the fore.

To the intellectual elite no greater honour can be conferred than to be acknowledged by peers, quoted by them, and even to have some process or truth named after you.
So in the humanist world of applied science the ‘prophets’ are not Confucius, Buddha, Moses or Paul, but such names as Marx, Freud, Kinsey and Pavlov.
That these names are still honoured today speaks to their status as primary voices or significant contributors to the humanist cause.
Such men are the gurus or holy men of humanism.

Huxley reflects the formula of giving honour to the humanist scientist by building their names into the key processes by which they made his utopia possible. We find reference to a Bokanovski’s Process and Podsnap’s Technique and respect for a Pilkington at Mombasa. Enshrining the name of men who are revered is automatic to Huxley.

Apart from fictitious names for processes not yet invented, Huxley exposes his own reverence for men who have advanced the humanist utopian ideal.

Haekel

In chapter 1 we find reference to Haekel’s ‘embryonic recapitulation’ pseudo-science.
Without mentioning Haekel that man’s myth is keenly affirmed:
“The embryos still have gills. We immunize the fish against the future man’s diseases.”
Haekel’s fraud was exposed in the 1890’s but still promoted in “science” (?) textbooks since that time, including being attested to as fact by the NSW education system in 2012.
Haekel’s deliberately deceptive drawings were further exposed at the end of last century when correct embryo images were collated to show the degree of gross misrepresentation engaged in by this fraudster.

In Brave New World not only is Haekel’s fraud presented confidently but its logical deception is also stated in the words “future man’s diseases”, as if the embryo is not yet “man” but something sub-human.

One of the pivotal platforms for humanist thought is that man is not truly man in the sense taught by Christianity, but a mere accident of chance and even in the womb is nothing more than an animal that can be tamed or manipulated into whatever others choose it to be, or even destroyed without thought. Huxley’s utopia is built soundly upon that premise.

Mass Production

Also looming large in Huxley’s view of the world, as a luminary who will usher in the Brave New World, is Henry Ford, the champion of mass production. To Huxley the application of production line process, as Ford famously achieved, signalled much more than efficient manufacture, but the prospect of just about anything being controlled by man’s technology.
Thus Huxley evokes the image of human embryos relentlessly subjected to production line process.

Today ‘Who is Ford?’ While production line ingenuity seemed to be a compelling breakthrough to Huxley in 1930 no-one today is at all likely to deify, or even give too much thought to “Fordism”.
We are much more enamoured with the innovations that gave us Microsoft, Apple and Khan Academy. Technology has given us much more than Henry Ford’s clunky Model T, and remote third world countries now produce for us base model vehicles that make Ford’s efforts look archaic.
Production line processes pale into insignificance compared with the transistor and microchip and the benefits of the world-wide-web.

Despite such incredible advance in technology, production processes, robotics, miniaturisation, and so on since 1931 we are not any closer to Huxley’s utopian artificial womb. Henry Ford did not offer us anything more than mass produced goods. And since Ford’s day we have become much better at mass production of identical manufactured items. Ford is forgotten and mankind, family, happiness and pain continue as ever before.

Pavlov

In Chapter 2 we find another of Huxley’s luminaries in Pavlov, with his name enshrined in the ‘Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning Rooms’. The Brave New World has supposedly refined the science of conditioning to train children to react as per the programming. It seems that Pavlov’s admirers once salivated in anticipation of a Brave New World.

But did the great Pavlov give us anything any granny with a cat did not already know? Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, in anticipation of the meal that normally accompanied that sound. For this he is a humanist hero, having unlocked the human psyche (or the dog psyche anyway).
Yet when a cat owner opens the refrigerator, starts to open a tin of cat food, or taps the can the pet will come running and licking its lips. And if the stooped old widow is opening the fridge for herself or just opening a can of baked beans the preconditioned cat response is elicited as reliably as in Pavlov’s laboratory.

Wow! The great Pavlov stands beside the stooped granny feeding her cat. And the control of man is no closer than it was when cats first domesticated us.
Why then is Pavlov adored? He was part of the educated elite, not a stooped old granny. And he provided a cogent promise that by discovering what was already known for past millennia he was unlocking new horizons for the future.

I am reminded of the 2,000 year old warning that “professing themselves to be wise they became fools” (Paul the student of Gamaliel).

Note that in the application of Pavlovian conditioning Huxley has no qualms about inflicting pain and denying people their god-given right to choose freely. Cruelty to infants, which would be condemned if it was in the form of parental discipline of the child, is seen as noble when inflicted painfully and repeatedly upon an entire generation in order to make them become something they may not want to be.
All hail humanism. It stands against the cruelty of punishment for crime as a means of raising moral character and advocates far greater cruelty (even torture) to enslave the minds of people so they don’t get in the way of others who want to have their fun without moral responsibility.
And Pavlov, not the granny with her cat, can be hailed as the scientific luminary who legitimises this cruelty. I suspect Granny is perfectly happy for that.

This Pavlovian conditioning process is consistent with Huxley’s persistent idea that man is the end of the matter and that man can be freely tampered with by man.

Getting Rid of God

In his 1946 Foreword Huxley exposes his humanist religious commitment through his definition of ‘religion’.
“Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man’s Final End”.
This definition is man centric, thus humanist. It is in effect a pursuit of transcendence, arriving at the idealised state represented by the humanist notion of “Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman”.
This humanist pursuit is to become an enlightened being, to so find oneself and so effectively pursue self-help personal development principles, as to have arrived at a higher state of consciousness where man has risen above the mundane and become a higher being.
This is thus a religion in which one saves oneself. Human saving human. This is the religion of Humanism, not the fear of God.

Interestingly in Greene’s The Quiet American, his American character, Alden Pyle, holds to the religious beliefs of Unitarianism and Christian Science, both which compromise the core values of traditional Christianity and accommodate the humanist idea of man’s effective effort to save self.

Rather than recognising an eternal, self-existent being who exists separate from and as creator and lord over all we know, and to whom we therefore owe allegiance and by whom we will be measured in comparison with his holy standards, Huxley (and Greene) project man as the ultimate being, in pursuit of his own happiness and not accountable to any external, holy being.
Thus in both cases man can do what is convenient or whatever he chooses, with his only challenge being to use applied science to overcome any negative effects which may occur (such as unwanted pregnancy).

In Huxley’s mind, representative of the humanist belief system, there is no greater morality than man. Technology is progressively liberating man from the consequences of actions otherwise seen as immoral (unwanted pregnancy, conflict with others, personal hurt and pain) and removing the obstacles to man’s pursuit of happiness.
Education and science are man’s greatest assets and those who find the keys to greater release from consequences or who can prop up man’s rejection of God automatically become heroes of the faith and prophets to be revered.

Educating and Deceiving

Huxley’s humanist ideas of man elevating himself are further disclosed in the process by which the Savage achieves higher levels of civility and awareness. The operative elevating agency is study, and specifically the study of Shakespeare.

This fits the ‘educated elite’ notion that education is a means of salvation.
If Shakespeare can ennoble the Savage, then those and other worthy writings of the masters can ennoble anyone. If one can be elevated to civility by study of good literature then what are the ultimate limits of such elevation? Cannot man continue to ennoble himself, lifting self higher and higher out of the morass of ideas and experience that bring pain? Thus the humanist ululation when one of their own provides a new insight that promises to advance the cause, such as a Pavlov giving scientific credence to a common observation.

Sadly we see abundant evidence that the educated elite and others held by the humanist ideology have no qualms about propagating fraud as fact and holding to outdated ideas that have lost their credibility, as we saw with Huxley’s propagation of Haekel’s fraudulent work. To admit that man cannot save himself and that the case against God has no witnesses is to cut the very ground from under the feet of those who have committed their whole life to the humanist belief system and a morality that has clearly put them in the anti-God camp. Human pride and self-will must clutch at straws rather than admit error and moral responsibility.

Note that for all the ennobling power of education and fine literature touching the soul, Huxley recognised the limits of this force. Education can ennoble, but it cannot save. It can improve life, but it cannot provide power over broader forces. We see this enacted in the ultimate suicide of the ennobled savage. For all his ability to see better and realise ‘self’ more fully, the savage ultimately succumbed to despair in the futility of his situation.

Sadly we see a history of similar defeat among humanist intellectuals who find that all their pursuits leave them without the ultimate freedom and power they hoped for.

Feminism

Feminist elements of humanism are also encapsulated in Huxley’s expose. While man and woman are indulged with unlimited ‘Free Sex’ (as DH Lawrence referred to it in Sons and Lovers) without the entanglements of relationships that may sour over time or emotional holds that may not be wanted, womankind is released from the impost of pregnancy. Contraception and Abortion are everyday resources of women in the Brave New World, and viviparous mothering is a shocking thought. (Viviparous: “Giving birth to living offspring that develop within the mother’s body.”)

For the feminist hedonist the impositions of motherhood, impacting the body during pregnancy and challenging the body’s natural youthful state in consequence of pregnancy and breast-feeding a baby, and the continued impositions of child raising, denying the carefree options available to a non-parent, and tying the mother into an ongoing connection with the child and the child’s father are anathema and must be removed by applied science.

In Huxley’s Brave New Society these womanly impositions are completely removed and woman is as free as a single male, unafraid of the impact of motherhood, and thus viviparous motherhood is an obscene prospect. And the imposition of child raising is also removed by children being raised by the state, without consciousness of mother and father or other family connections.

In the 8 decades since Huxley’s writing we see the efforts of technologists and policy makers to push the envelope in regard to these humanist and feminist ideals, with the 1960’s introduction of the contraceptive pill, 1970’s no-fault divorce, abortion on demand, expanded child care, extended institutionalised education, more working women, greater legal recognition of de-facto relationships and so on.

The Greater Good

Explicit in Brave New World is gross social engineering, manipulating life as one might prune a tree or treat an animal. Justification for such blatant enslavement and torture is achievement of a better equilibrium for all.

The greater good imposed on all is of man’s making and allows certain individuals, ‘controllers’, to dictate the fate of entire generations. The problem emerges, however, that if there are no external moral absolutes by which goodness can be defined, then the greater good is an empty notion, where the will of one is forced upon another.

The Savage and those others who had achieved self identity and did not want to live within the confines of the Brave New World tyranny suffered under the weight of the greater good. The greater good cannot exist without identification of the greatest good. And the greatest good invokes the present and person of one who is ultimately holy and good, against whose standards all of man’s thought and action are measured.

Noble Savage

It is interesting that Huxley’s counterpoint to the Brave New World is represented through an educated savage. The title “savage” is repeatedly assigned this individual from the native reservation. This suggests an intention to tease at the notion of the Noble Savage, “an idealized concept of uncivilized man, who symbolizes the innate goodness of one not exposed to the corrupting influences of civilization.”

It seems that in Huxley’s expose of the Brave New World we are meant to identify with the concerns of the savage and to see in him the better way than a technologically manipulated society. The savage embraced learning, by reading Shakespeare, and is thus ennobled. He seeks an independent lifestyle, of his own making, not controlled by the society at large.

Sadly for the savage he is unable to escape the impost of that other society which does not share his values and which continually interferes with his highest ideals. Thus the savage takes his life.

That act of suicide is a pessimistic recognition that the ubiquitous forces of American cultural projection cannot be stopped and will eventually destroy all vestiges of independent thought and life.
Hail the Brave New World!

Comparing Humanism and Christianity

Comparing the humanist Utopian ideal presented in Brave New World with the prevailing Christian beliefs that the Brave New World stood against the three most obvious pillars of that world stand in stark contrast to the classical Christian values upon which the ancient Monarchy and English culture stand.

Those three most obvious pillars in Brave New World are:
Man’s power over life, as evidenced in the incubator, conditioning facilities, contraception and abortion processes;
Self-indulgent living, with freedom from consequences, as evidenced in the free sex and addiction free drug usage; and
Freedom from moral accountability, as seen in the removal of family ties, committed relationships and consciousness of an external moral Creator God.

In contrast, traditional Biblical Christianity teaches that:
Life is created by God and thus man can only have power over life within the confines of God’s moral precepts;
Man is to live according to the will and pleasure of God, and must deny selfish impulses and form godly character in so doing; and
Man is fully morally accountable to God for every word, thought and act, and must also accommodate himself to the demands of family and social relationships.

Thus the values of the Brave New World, when presented in 1931, were a bold affront to all that is Christian in the western world. Its shock value would have been much greater in its day, since the decline in consciousness of Christian teaching and the loosening of morals has been significant in the past eighty years.

The Creation SuperCamp this year gave me yet more powerful insights into the poverty of evolution. I could not get past how obvious it was that evolution is a Dead Duck!

Here are some things I gleaned and thoughts that sprang from the various sessions, although I must admit that some of the technical detail went over my head, especially when we got to formulas.

In our dynamic solar system the greatest possible time of earth’s existence between tidal locking with the sun and too great a distance to sustain life is a mere 50 million years. This time frame is far below the time evolutionists demand to allow for their imagined evolutionary processes.

The ‘out of Africa’ story promoted by evolutionists asks us to believe that primates left the relative safety of their tree habitats in order to live on the savage savannahs of Africa, which no modern person would do without a gun in hand. This was supposedly such a promising option for these primates that they abandoned their tree-friendly anatomy for the wonders of living with giant hyenas and a host of other savage creatures. Those monkeys were not only out of their tree, they were out of their mind!

The incredible complexity of the simplest living cell contains so many layers of exacting processes that previously required time frames for random chance mutations to create them must be expanded multiple times over.

Each new discovery of increased microbiological complexity is a mystery and a huge burden for naturalistic evolution, but it is expected by Creationists and celebrated each time it is uncovered.

Evidence for the powerful forces of water at work during the global flood is overwhelmingly obvious, right before our eyes, such as planation surfaces. And that evidence readily accounts for common features that defy explanation by the popular steady state long ages geological theories.

Evolution as a worldview is not held to because it makes good science but because the alternative of special creation at the hands of an omnipotent God is rejected.

A primordial soup is not only ineffective in providing the birthplace of amino acids and proteins but the presence of water destroys those essential ingredients for life.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics defies the notion of an eternal universe because its processes lead everything from a position of readily available energy to a position of heat death, where energy is no longer available. Thus the universe had a beginning and is marching steadily towards a place where everything will be totally rundown and inactive (though Christians have the guarantee of God’s intervention long before that fate).

Arbitrarily given names for at least one star constellation show evidence of consistency in cultures as disparate as Australian Aboriginals and the ancient Greeks, supporting the Biblical account of cultures having a common origin prior to the Babel confusion of languages.

Evolution is suffering from ‘information overload’. Complex Information Systems do not rise by chance and they evidence intelligence in conceiving the message, creating the code, transmission of the coded information, activation of the interpretative processes, interpretation of the coded message and activation of an outcome caused by the message being received. The incredible amount of information and the high levels of complexity abundantly evident in living cells defy all possibility of chance random occurrence and shout the reality of an intelligent designer.

Evolution’s ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest as props for evolutionary development only kick in when self-sustaining, reproducing organisms exist. So the incredibly complex information systems needed to get to the point of a living, reproducing organism are not benefited by evolution’s magic wands. The creation of reproducing organisms that can then benefit from natural selection is unaccounted for by evolutionary models.

While highly qualified creationist scientists abound, including the speakers at the SuperCamp, it is also exciting to hear of unqualified creationists who become expert in their chosen field of science just by taking interest and correctly interpreting the evidence for what it is, not denying the implications and foiling their mind with unrealistic notions.
We heard of an extremely knowledgeable geologist in Germany who has no formal qualifications in geology but has eagerly consumed creationist research into the subject. This inspires us to become an expert in our chosen field because we are free to see and evaluate the evidence for what it is, not what it is supposed to be by false ideology.

Human diversity is not only accounted for by reproduction and adaptation by selection, which overall leads to loss of information in the individual’s genetic code, but also by epigenetic switches which can cause adaptation with no genetic change.
Despite visible diversity we are all one human family with no more genetic diversity between races than is found within any people group.

The enormous quantities of dark matter and dark energy imagined by cosmologists to explain the universe are completely unnecessary to the creationist, but necessary to make the big bang model work. There is reason to seriously doubt their existence.

Gene expression to form proteins involves four levels of coding, not just the sequence of amino acids. Each level is itself statistically impossible in terms of probability, and the higher levels, such as arranging placement and then folding to bring together matching elements in the protein, is staggeringly clever and involves intelligence of a very high order.
Random chance processes cannot be invoked to account for this, yet it is ubiquitous in all living things and would have been necessary for the hypothetical ‘original common ancestor’ organism as well.

Evolution is ‘running out of time’ because observations of natural processes, such as the earth’s minute movement away from the sun, restrict the time spans available for evolution, and yet discoveries of increased complexity and intricate, multipart information systems in abundance significantly extend the time frames needed by evolutionists.

Biblical explanations for what we see around us are perfectly sufficient and fit observable science so well that despite some remaining challenges, which exist for all broad scientific models, Christians do not need an impossible evolution process to explain anything.
In fact, particles-to-people evolution presents far more improbabilities and inexplicable factors and prompts the creation of unseen forces and substances, such as dark energy and dark matter, than the scientifically consistent explanation given in the Bible.
Who needs evolution? Only those who want to deny God.
We don’t need it. It is completely redundant to our lives and only blinds people to the observable evidence right before them. How sad.

Time is evolution’s Poison Pill. Evolutionists demand great expanses of time to allow for their impossible microbiological evolutionary models (anything is possible – “given enough time”), yet increases in time crash into limits in the solar system and more.
Evolution’s miracle cure (great expanses of time) is a poison pill.

Just as the Scribes took away the ‘key of knowledge’ from people in Jesus’ day so evolution takes away the key of knowledge in much of science today, by misdirecting people to stories, myths and naturalistic explanations that deny the realities of a global flood, recent creation, intelligent design, perfectly reasonable complexity and much more.

Evolution is on ‘artificial life support’ by its advocates, pumping flimsy explanations and invoking unreal factors into scientific thought, while there are no vital signs of life in the theory at all.

Richard Dawkins has labelled those who believe in evolution as ‘ignorant baboons’, thus choosing to mock all the great creationist scientists upon whose shoulders modern science now rests.
It is interesting to think of Dawkins mocking Sir Isaac Newton and many other great men and women as ‘ignorant baboons’.

With SuperCamp behind me I find myself encouraged to take greater interest in observable science, including looking at the stars above and rock formations all around me.
Thanks to CMI and all the great speakers, and to all those who worked together to make this huge event possible.

[Chris Field is a Melbourne-based Christian minister who first took the Creation message seriously in the mid 1980’s following a CMI presentation. He and his family have been helped by CMI speakers, books and videos and by subscribing to the Creation Magazine over the past quarter century.]

Our human heart objects to forgiving others and relies on several tricks to excuse its unforgiveness.  One trick is to give partial forgiveness and then stop forgiving, as if you now have a right to be hard hearted, because you have already shown grace.

We saw that resentments come from our unresolved issues of the past, where withholding forgiveness makes issues out of those things we hold onto.  Now let’s look at another source of resentments.

The Way I Want It

Another source of resentments is our selfish desire to have things our way.  We all want to be loved, valued and appreciated, and we all want to have an easy life if we can get it.

Once we have determined the way we want things to be we can easily fall into resentment of those who upset our plans, block fulfilment of our will and so on.

If we don’t get the attention we want from family, spouse or friends we can become resentful.

If our spouse and family continually frustrate our hopes and dreams we can become resentful.

If our personal capacities let us down we can resent ourself and even resent God for making us with such limitations.

If you want peace and quiet you will resent those who take it from you.  If you want lots of intimacy, you will resent the spouse that is not interested.  If you want to live in a big house you will resent those that obstruct that objective.  If you want to be the centre of attention you will resent those you must compete with and those who don’t value you as much as you want.

“We weren’t supposed to start a family so quickly.”  “I wasn’t counting on your health being such a problem.”  “I didn’t expect your family to be so interfering.”  “Why don’t people just leave me in peace?”  “I really thought you were going to make something of yourself.”  “I never expected you to be so much like your mum.”  “I thought I could trust you to make wise decisions but you just keep messing things up.”

How do you like things to be?  Do your spouse and family frustrate your hopes and dreams?  Have you forgiven them yet or are you carrying resentment toward them?

It Is Not Fair

Justice issues are another interesting area of resentment.  Are you intolerant of injustice?  Such intolerance appears to be very noble, but you may actually be a slave to bitterness.

I have seen people get on their high horse, as the expression has it, and go charging into a situation in defence of justice.  They are incensed by something they will not let pass: someone wrongly judged; someone not sharing properly; selfishness displayed; or whatever.  The justice champion cannot but dive into the situation and berate the offender.

A common expression of this motivation is the “It’s not fair!” claim so readily heard from the mouth of children.  What they are really saying is, “I’m offended by that”.

A wise parent teaches a child that life is not fair and that each of us must respond to our situations with godly character, grace and faith.  In the absence of such wisdom children learn to fight about the matter of fairness and become demanding, intolerant, hyper-sensitive and so on.

Don’t be fooled by your noble and righteous indignation at those who are selfish, arrogant, loud, exploitative, thoughtless or whatever.  I dare suggest that your reactions are evidence of issues you have not resolved, rather than a divine calling to right the wrongs on earth.

Cleaning the Garage

As I visited friends a few weeks ago I saw their neighbour trying to clean out her garage.  The mother of the family directed the exercise and her tone and demands clearly indicated that she was driving the project and had little trust in getting the help she needed voluntarily.

She shouted like a sergeant-major and found fault with the efforts of her husband and teenage son.  Within half an hour the husband drove off at high speed, revving his motor in what seemed to be a show of machismo, as if to say he is a real man and not really dominated by his wife.  The husband did not return until the whole ordeal was well over.  Several hours later the woman was still scolding the children helping her.  She was on a crusade and it sounded like a dreaded ordeal for all involved.

She probably had very good reasons to act as she did.  Her husband probably lets her down repeatedly.  Her children probably resent being recruited into her projects and subjected to her ugly attitude and tone.  It is probably a toxic experience for everyone.

And that’s consistent with the warning in Hebrews.  If you allow a root of bitterness to grow inside you then many people will be defiled (Hebrews 12:15 ).  In fact, the whole process gets poisoned.

And in such a case it is probably impossible to imagine handling the situation differently, without any resentment, but with plenty of grace.

Resentment Free

If all resentment was removed and thorough forgiveness given then there would be no hurt, disappointment, frustration, shame or similar negatives in the way of getting the job done.

In such a case a happy discussion and negotiation could be explored to see how best to achieve the objective.  Where disagreement exists then godly wisdom can be applied to come to a gracious agreement that does not grow a crop of bitterness.

Accusations and vilifications would not occur.  Despairing thoughts and emotional outbursts would not be part of the process.  Any ruffled feathers would be soon smoothed over by finding God’s grace and keeping that grace as the key quality of the whole exchange.

Manipulation would not be resorted to, nor taking command of the lives of others so as to squeeze from them the required obedience.

And I think to myself (to quote a line from a song), “What a wonderful world!”

How Else

Many a frustrated person will protest by asking, “If I don’t get angry and let people know how they let me down, how can I get them to do the right thing?”

I fully sympathise with the question, but please stop a moment and consider its implications.

The only mechanism you have developed in order to get things done to your satisfaction is an evil and toxic mechanism.  You are highly unqualified to lead any project at all if your skill set is limited to anger and abuse.  Rather than being a person of grace who can bless, train and lead others, you are so limited that your only powertool is toxic treatment of others.  You are actively sowing poison into others in order to get your will followed.

And who is to say your ideas of the “right thing” are correct?  If you have to contend with people to get them to fit in with your idea of what is right, then maybe you are the one who is out of order.

Why is YOUR way or YOUR priority, which others don’t seem to be supporting, the way that must be enforced?  What if you are trying to control and drive people to fulfil your agenda when God does not care as much for your agenda as you do?

Remember Martha telling Jesus to force Mary to do what Martha wanted, and Jesus saying that Martha had it wrong (see Luke 10:38-42).

Put Down that Knife

If you are a control freak, totally sold out to the offences that drive you, and determined to have your way, your justification, your vengeance or whatever else YOU think is vital, then you will have already gagged at what I am saying.  You will have your knives drawn to cut me down to size and let me know how justified you are in being angry, resentful, indignant, controlling and demanding, since you are standing on holy ground and everyone else is mired in irresponsibility, foolishness and self will.

But remember the words of Christ.  If you do not forgive you will not be forgiven (Matthew 6:14).  If you demand that others pay their debt to you then God will deliver you into the hands of ‘tormentors’ (Matthew 18:34,35).  And the torment you display suggests you are already under God’s sentence of punishment.

Check out my article titled Resolving Resentment to see the Biblical basis for these claims.

You have abandoned God’s grace and the mental and emotional distress that now drives you to torment others is a stinking mess that YOU have made.  Others have not made it for you.

You desperately need to apply forgiveness to all those who incense you and who you feel so offended by.  If you do not then you are doomed to deeper misery than you currently have and you will burn off more and more of your family and friends.  You are TOXIC, despite your prideful belief that you are on God’s side.

Better Solutions

People are selfish and irresponsible.  Your spouse, family, friends and associates fit that description.  You will be let down and hurt by those people.  That’s an everyday part of life.

You will either resent life or you will bring God’s grace into it.  As you learn to forgive and extend grace to people who do not deserve it, just as you want God to extend His grace to you when you don’t deserve it, life will become a blessing and a joy, instead of a wrangle.

In order to resolve differences and difficulties you have with your spouse, family or friends, you are best to start with a clean heart and free spirit.  Resentment, anger, frustration, jealousy, wilfulness, prejudice, and the like are barriers to the better solutions you need.  Remove those barriers immediately by giving open hearted forgiveness to all those who offend you.

Then work with God and your spouse, family and friends to find a godly and blessed solution.

You may have to change your priorities, because they are unrealistic.  You may have to accept others for who they really are, not who you want them to be.  You may need to inspire others to see the merit of things you hold dear.  You may need to see the wisdom of their different way of doing things, and give up your limited concepts about how things and what things are to be done.

You Choose

There are only two options in dealing with the upsets of life.  You either find and give God’s grace to those who offend and fail you, or you become bitter toward them, a root of bitterness springs up in your life and you and many others become defiled.

If your relationships involve contention, argument, disappointment, resentment, wrangling, hardness of heart, or similar negative elements, then you have already made bad choices in the past and are living with the toxic results.

I don’t have to live your life or live with you.  If you want to go ahead and mangle your life then do so as much as you want.  But please don’t live in deception any longer.  You are not a noble agent of God, but a miserable, selfish and bitter person who has personally chosen to come under the power of evil and to damage all those around you.  If you choose to live in unforgiveness then you have everything you deserve.

If you are willing to humble yourself, let me encourage you with this wonderful news.  By you simply following God’s instructions, forgiving all who offend you, God’s grace and His heavenly blessings will be released into your life, no matter how desperately bad things are right now.

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your offspring may live” Deuteronomy 30:19

The earlier articles on Resentment can be found by these links:
Resolving Resentment http://chrisfieldblog.com/2012/01/02/resolving-resentment
Resentment Revisited (part 1) http://chrisfieldblog.com/2012/09/12/resentment-revisited

In my previous Resolving Resentment article (http://chrisfieldblog.com/2012/01/02/resolving-resentment) I showed how Forgiveness is the key to unlocking and removing the resentments that poison relationships.

I now revisit Resentment to help bring home its presence and to help people grapple with its impact in their heart and home.  This article is in 2 parts so after you have read this, look for Resentment Revisited 2 to complete the thoughts I want to share with you.

Resisting Forgiveness

Our human heart is totally selfish and proud.  It resists forgiveness and chooses resentment.  Resentment is really just a soft label for bitterness.  Bitterness is totally toxic and means we have refused to show God’s grace to those we are offended by or angry with.

Our determination to be bitter means we quickly develop a variety of Objections to Forgiveness.  And what is more we can even pride ourselves that we gave partial forgiveness and have put up with the other person better than others might.  At heart we can be real ‘stinkers’!

Limited Forgiveness

A common approach to forgiveness is to give Partial Forgiveness and to applaud ourselves for doing so.  At heart we are Objecting to forgiveness, and using Partial Forgiveness as a way out of forgiveness.

We see an example of this in Peter the Apostle.  Peter accepted Jesus’ teaching about the need to forgive, but in his heart Peter really wanted to take a hard stand against those who offended him.  Look at the historical record of the event, recorded for us by Matthew the Tax Collector.

“Then came Peter to him (Jesus), and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times? Jesus said to him, I say not to you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21,22

Peter thought that forgiving his brother SEVEN times was pretty good.  Imagine being offended by the same person the same way Seven Times!  That would be SO offensive.  Forgiving someone Seven times sounds pretty impressive under those circumstances.

Surely there has to be a limit to forgiveness.  If a husband continues to forget anniversaries, continues to drink too much, continues to embarrass his wife in public, continues to waste money, continues to ignore his wife’s advice, or continues any other offensive behaviour, then SURELY there must be a limit to any forgiveness.

And what about a wife who continues to ignore her husband’s wishes, continues to rubbish him to her friends, continues to nag him about his failings, continues to manipulate him, continues to frustrate his interest in intimacy, or continues any other offensive behaviour?  Surely there must be a limit to forgiveness in such cases.

Unlimited Forgiveness

Jesus responded to Peter’s question about limited forgiveness by saying there is no real limit to forgiveness.  We are to forgive and keep on forgiving.  What ever we think is our absolute limit needs to be multiplied ten times and then multiplied by the original number all over again.

If we offer ‘partial forgiveness’ then we have not truly forgiven.

And there is nothing to boast about that we have put up with this or that for so long or so many times.  There is no room for pride in our partial forgiveness.

What Really Happens

People normally put up with something that bothers them for a while, then decide they have a right to explode, react, get angry, resent the action and be bitter toward the offender.  People even see their short lived patience as a badge of honour and they usually broadcast the fact that they have been tolerant, as if that excuses their anger, resentment and final UNFORGIVENESS.

“I haven’t said anything for three days, but you just keep on doing what you are doing and so, ENOUGH is ENOUGH!”  “I’ve had a belly full of your behaviour and I’m not taking it any more.”  “This has gone TOO FAR!”  “I’ve been patient with you, and I haven’t said anything before, but I just have to tell you that I am angry with what you are doing.”  “You have no idea what you have put me through and how patient I have been!”

Despite all those high sounding self affirmations about how wonderful we have been putting up with the other person’s faults, what really happens is that we give in to Unforgiveness.  We choose to be Unforgiving and to then be angry, resentful, judgmental, condemning, etc.

Our pride justifies our anger and unforgiveness and we commend ourselves for having temporarily endured the offence, when in truth we have violated God’

Human Limits

Whether we actually ‘forgive’ or just try to tolerate the other person’s behaviour for a while we usually have pretty short limits.  Peter thought that forgiving SEVEN times was pretty impressive.

It could even be that Peter was proud of his incredible willingness to forgive an offender Seven times.  He had no hesitation in offering the idea to Jesus, as if it was a pretty good offer.

Our human hearts are evil and so we don’t want to act like God or Christ and to forgive.  That is why Christ warned us that if we do not forgive we will not be forgiven, Matthew 6:15.  We are so prone to reacting badly to other people’s failures, while wanting to be excused from our own.

Resentment is Resentment

Whether you give in to resentment the instant you are offended, or whether you forgive someone seven times before you give in to resentment, Resentment is still Resentment.  Anger is still anger.  Bitterness is still bitterness.  Unforgiveness is till unforgiveness, even if you gave partial forgiveness for a while before you reverted to unforgiveness.

Your temporary tolerance, incredible patience and limited forgiveness don’t count for anything.  You have allowed a root of bitterness to spring up and to defile you and those around you (Hebrews 12:15).  Your heart reaction is wrong, and you failed to give God’s grace to someone who needs it.

What is more, you set yourself up as judge.  Despite God’s warnings that we are not to judge others (Matthew 7:1) a person who becomes angry and resentful has stood in judgement of someone.  In fact, they have set themselves up as “Judge, Jury and Executioner”!  They judge the person to be out of order, find them to be “guilty” and then prescribe the punishment.  The punishment is that the offender is subjected to the anger and resentment of the one standing in judgement.

Our choice to resent someone means we think we can stand in God’s place and lord ourselves over the other person.  And that’s pride.

Growing Your Resentments

Where do resentments come from?  Obviously they come from our decision to be angry and unforgiving toward those who offend us.

By that process, however, we each grow our own garden of resentments, based on our past decisions about the things we will resent.  Some people have a flourishing garden of resentments and live their lives in a perpetual state of reaction to people who offend them.

Since this is so very debilitating, as well as against God’s instruction to show grace to people and even to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43,44), we should have a closer look at how this process takes place in our lives.

People I Dislike

When we are offended by a person or a situation and allow resentment to spring up we easily become resentful of all people or situations that remind us of that original offence.

You will be familiar with the idea that, “I just can’t stand people like that!”  Whatever the “like that” is in your case, and whatever it is that you can’t stand, it represents a pet resentment you are growing in your life.

The problem for you is that you have been offended in the past and not given forgiveness to the one who offended or wronged you.

Guess what might be unresolved in your life if you say things like these.  “I can’t stand bossy people.”  “I can’t tolerate such injustice.”  “That look on someone’s face makes my blood boil.”  “I have absolutely no time for people like that.”  “Don’t raise your eyebrows at me when I’m talking to you!”  “You just think you’re SO superior, don’t you.”  “I’m not going to let that happen to me ever again.”  “I won’t have someone looking down at me.”
People have issues about being belittled, ignored, misunderstood, misrepresented, falsely accused, taken for granted, used and rejected.  Some people engage the rest of their lives trying to even some score, prove some point, vindicate themselves, right some wrong or otherwise react to some offence they have never forgiven.

Learned Intolerances

Every time we fail to show God’s grace to someone who wrongs us we become trapped in bitterness.  We are warned that the only alternative to giving grace is to have a “root of bitterness” spring up in our life (Hebrews 12:15).

We don’t like the word ‘bitterness’ so we use such terms as resentment, anger, frustration and intolerance, because those things sound reasonable, and can even be justified as a righteous response to someone else’s evil.

The examples can be quite obvious, like having a bossy older sister causing people to be intolerant of strong minded women.  At the same time we each have unique and personal opportunities to learn intolerance toward certain types of people or behaviour.  Our intolerance is really a sign of a root of bitterness inside us.

People despise the favoured child in their family, feeling wronged by not getting the same attention.  People despise the over confident person who always outperforms them.  People resent others who get privileges they did not get.  And on it goes.  Much of the energy behind feminism is fuelled by feelings of resentment toward males.

What are your intolerances?

Resolve It

Discovering your intolerances and uncovering your bitterness is not a game where you get to bring up how others have hurt you.  It is a vital challenge to your heart, calling you to whole-heartedly forgive those who have offended you in the past.

Don’t revisit your pain, but RESOLVE IT!

All the unfinished business in your heart needs to be removed by you forgiving every offender who ever wronged you.  Give up your unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment and anger.  Despite what those people have done, your only hope of a better future is for you to forgive them.

If you do not forgive them you end up in the hands of spiritual tormentors, as Jesus warns in Matthew 18:34,35.  So the mess you are now in is not because of the way they treated you but because of your refusal to forgive them.

Stop blaming others for their faults when YOU are the worst enemy to your happiness and blessing.

Grow up and resolve your issues right now, by choosing to forgive people who don’t deserve to be forgiven, just as you want God to forgive you even though you don’t deserve it.

There is More

If you find these thoughts helpful then look out for the second part of this article on Resentment Revisited.  I have additional practical insights to share with you, so you can be free and so you can help others.

Look out for Resentment Revisited 2.

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR SKIT

Storyline: A character called Sam Arratan has just become a Christian and needs to learn to love his neighbour and thus be a Good Sam Arratan.

Man:    Hello, are you Mr Arratan.

Sam:    Yes, I’m Sam. I’m Sam Arratan.

Man:    Nice to meet you, Sam. I hear you just became a Christian.

Sam:    Yes. Now Jesus is Lord of my life.

Man:    That’s wonderful. So that means He gets to tell you what to do. If you don’t do what He says, then He isn’t really LORD, is He?

Sam:    OK, I’m ready for my first instruction from Christ, since I have just made Him Lord of my life. What is it?

Man:    (Opens Bible and reads) “Love Your Neighbour just the same way you love yourself!”

Sam:    What? I can’t do that. My neighbours are mean and nasty.

Man:    Well, Christ’s command is to Love your Neighbour, so that’s what you have to do, no matter what your neighbours are like.

Sam:    I think I’ll move to some place where I don’t have any neighbours.

Man:    No, you will always have many neighbours.

Sam:    Not if I move to the country and live on a huge farm in the middle of the desert. Or maybe I could live on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean. Hmmm, or maybe I could live on the Moon.

Man:    You are Exasperating!

Sam:    No, I’m Sam. Sam Arratan!

Man:    Well, Sam, Neighbours are not just the people who live next door to you, but all the people you meet.

Sam:    OK, I’ll become a monk and I’ll live away from everyone. I’ll live on top of a pole in the desert! That’s what Saint Simeon did over 1,000 years ago.

Man:    But, you’re missing something. God never asks us to do something without giving us the ability to do His will.

Sam:    So God can give me the ability to love my neighbours?

Man:    Of course He can, if you ask Him.

Sam:    So, how am I supposed to love people who I don’t like?

Man:    Well, firstly let’s discover what real LOVE is. It’s when you want what is best for someone else, no matter how hard it is for you to give it to them.

Sam:    So, I have to want what is BEST for them, even if it makes things hard for me?

Man:    Yes.

Sam:    Like, when I want them to get their broken window fixed, but I don’t want them to know it was me who hit the ball?

Man:    Yes. Or when you help them, when you’d rather be off playing with your friends or just reading a book.

Sam:    That’s going to be hard.

Man:    If God is helping you, it really will be quite easy and it will bring you great blessing as well.

Sam:    But how many hours each Sunday do I have to do this?

Man:    Oh, you don’t just do it on Sundays. You do it every day of the week.

Sam:    Mornings or afternoons?

Man:    All day.

Sam:    So after the sun goes down I can forget about it.

Man:    No, it’s ALL day, including the night.

Sam:    Like 24/7?

Man:    Yes, 24/7.

Sam:    So, when I get to 24 I’ll help 7 people?

Man:    No, silly. You have to love your neighbour 24 hours every day, 7 days a week.

Sam:    What about a Leap Week?

Man:    There’s no such thing as a Leap Week.

Sam:    Oh. I was just hoping.

Man:    You are SO exasperating.

Sam:    No, I’m Sam. Sam Arratan!

Man:    Well, Sam, Any time your neighbour has a need, you would help them if you love them.

Sam:    Well, that pretty girl down the street, I could love her.

Man:    No. Love isn’t that nice feeling you feel toward a pretty girl. It’s when you make a choice to do the right thing, even when it’s hard. Feelings don’t come into it.

Sam:    I think they do. If I was raking the grass for my nasty neighbour, I’d sure have some FEELINGS about that.

Man:    Then you’ll have to die to those feelings.

Sam:    Now you want me DEAD!

Man:    No, it’s an expression. It means you have to give up those feelings and do what Christ asks you, no matter how hard it seems to be.

Sam:    Do you know where I can get a pole?

Man:    Oh, you’re just SO EXASPERATING.

Sam:    No, I’m Sam. Sam Arratan.

Man:    Well, Mr Sam Arratan, I want to make you into a Good Sam Arratan!

Sam:    A Good Samaritan! Hey I know that story. It’s about a man who helped some poor sucker who got bashed up.

Man:    Yes, he wanted the best for the injured man, even though it cost him time and money. He put the injured man on his donkey and took him to the inn.

Sam:    Do you really want me to become a Good Sam Arratan?

Man:    Yes.

Sam:    OK, where can I get a donkey?

Man:    Oh, you’re SO EXASPERATING.

Sam:    No, I’m Sam. My name’s Sam …

Man:    ARRATAN. Yes, I know.

Sam:    So, I really have to love my neighbour, do I?

Man:    Well, it’s not my idea. That’s what Christ Himself commands us to do.

Sam:    Well have you ever had to love your neighbour?

Man:    Do you mean, have I ever had to want the best for someone?

Sam:    Yes.

Man:    Someone who is stupid and who really needs a lot of help.

Sam:    Well, yes.

Man:    (glares at him) What do you think I’m doing right now?

Sam:    So, you love me?

Man:    I’m trying to.

(discussion continues as they move toward the exit)

Sam:    Is it my hair? Or my good looks? Maybe it’s my muscles? I’m pretty intelligent too. I was top of my class in pre-school.

Man:    Oh, you’re SO EXASPERATING!

Sam:    No, I’m SAM. SAM ARRATAN. (exit)

Yes, it is true that God has used me in wonderful ways.  And on top of all that there are dealings of God and spiritual challenges I have had to face that were outside the public view.  And in it all God has been faithful and God has given me amazing opportunities beyond my expectation.

So, what is the secret to all of that?  How did an insecure, lanky Aussie lad end up on the global stage?  How did I, with all my limitations, get to speak powerfully into the lives of some of the world’s best known names in Christian ministry?  How is it that doors of ministry and the doors of hard to get into homes and places opened up to me?

Let me tell you, it wasn’t through education.  I’m no dummy, but I never sought academic merit.  My approach was much simpler than that.

And it wasn’t through mentoring.  If there is one pain I carry after all these years and all the wonderful things I have been privileged to do it is that I never had anyone to train me and guide me through those difficult pioneering years.  If I have a word for today’s upcoming leaders, take advantage of the abundant input that is readily available to you.  Listen to the voices of those willing to speak into your life.  You have no idea how precious that is and how much I longed for it through decades of my life.

It wasn’t through perfect theology.  As I think back on those early sermons I preached to those small AOG congregations that us early Pentecostal preachers cared for in the first half of last century I know there are things I’d never preach again.  In fact, Jesus personally visited me on at least one occasion, just to make sure I didn’t preach what I had been preaching.

And it wasn’t through my denomination.  In those early days there was only one Pentecostal denomination, Assemblies of God.  It was the light to my nation for all who would open to the Holy Spirit.  Yet the day came when God instructed June and me to pull out of the AOG.  We cried for days.  We had so little to rely on, and Jesus took even that away from us.

So, what was it that made all the difference?  How did God get through to a young buck who had so little to get him through?

What I had, and I had it in good measure, was Desperation!

God gripped my heart with a sense of the sheer futility of what I was trying to do, preaching a message people didn’t care for, in a land that was so needy, with so little to give and so little power to change anything.  I became desperate.

I became desperate for the church.  I love the church and I hurt for those believers who so needed the power of God and so needed the touch of God, but who seemed to come up empty so often.

I longed to see the power of God.  I longed to see the church grow.  I longed to see a smile on the face of Jesus as His bride was made ready for Him.

But all I had in those early days were the simple messages we had been taught, and a handful of people, standing up for a truth the mainstream churches rejected, and having to go alone in just about everything we did.

Then Jesus heard my cry.

I can’t say that everything changed overnight.  It didn’t.  Many changes took years to take shape.  And many of the changes came at a price.

I mentioned having to give up the AOG.  How bitter the pain of that breach!  I knew it was God’s leading, but I could not understand it.  I had to die to my own understanding and be humble and simple enough to do what He wanted, when it tore me apart.

Yet in just a few short years I ended up pastoring a Congregational church, and was in the perfect position to make a major deposit into the emerging Charismatic revival of the 1960’s.  How wise God is!  The Charismatics rejected the Pentecostals but they looked to me for input, because of my Congregational label.

Unexpectedly I found myself invited to places I had never dreamed of, including monasteries, speaking powerfully into the lives of Catholic priests, nuns, mothers superior and hungry souls from all manner of churches.  What a privilege!  What a wonder!

But the desperation did not lift even with all of that.  Instead it has remained with me.

A life verse for me is found in Jeremiah 29:12: “Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.”

That verse was my call to prayer.  I am recognised by some as a man of prayer, but I don’t try to be.  I simply respond to the desperation to know God and to see His hand at work.  He has called me to call on Him.  He has promised me that when I call out to Him He hears.  Hallelujah!

And He has listened!  He heard the longing of a long-legged preacher from the backside of Australia and He opened the world to me.

And let me assure you that the dealings of God are far from over in my life.  Just in this past week God gave me powerful revelation about significant spiritual things in my life.  That’s what He often does before opening up amazing new doors for me.

Before I was invited to be on staff at ORU God did a deep work in my heart.  When Richard Roberts called me personally and urged me to be part of what God is doing there I was already prepared by the dealings of God.

God hasn’t finished with me yet and I’m keen to keep flowing with His will, because the church isn’t ready yet.  There are needs to be met.  There are churches to plant and lives to see transformed.

I am privileged to be part of God’s work in this past century.  And I am pleased to be able to say that I am totally unqualified for all that God did in and through me.  It is HIM!  And I say that with delight, knowing there is a whole army of men and women waiting to serve the Lord who need to know that if God can use me so wonderfully as He has, then God can use them too.

Let me be Frank with you (excuse the pun), but I don’t have a lot of time for today’s church programs.  I miss the Bible songs and I don’t like lightweight messages.  I urge you not to be a product of your generation, but to be desperate for more.  Be desperate for more of God, more revelation, more miracles, more power, more of God’s Kingdom on earth.

I can’t tell you that it will lead to an easy road.  It certainly didn’t for June and me.  But I wouldn’t exchange the past sixty years for anything.  And I am in anticipation about what God is yet to do through me before my use-by date comes up.

Be Desperate for God.  He’s watching your heart right now to see if you’ll be desperate for Him.

Dr Frank has permitted me to post this article for him.
For those who do not yet know this wonderful man of God he is based in Perth, Western Australia, where he has spent most of his ministry life.
Frank not only pastored AOG churches and became a significant Charismatic leader in the past century, but in recent years he was based at ORU in the USA, where he was a profound and prophetic voice into the lives of significant Christian ministries. Much of what he was privileged to input is not for public knowledge, but suffice it to say that Dr Frank has had significant impact in those lives.
I hope to present further contributions by Dr Frank if and when they become available.
Dr Frank authored several books which you may care to check out, including Breaking Eve’s Curse and Prophetic Insights into Spiritual Warfare.