The Bizarre Passions of Worldly Culture, and Why They are Incompatible with a True Passion for God's Glory

There's plenty of passion in the world today. Unfortunately, a lot of it is evil passion—lust, anger, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, self-love, and so on. Even whatever good feelings there are in this world are misspent—squandered on trivial things: sports, entertainment, recreation, and the pursuit of personal happiness. We're expected to be deliriously excited about things like that; and we're generally discouraged from taking serious things seriously.

In fact, it's one of the supreme ironies of our culture that raw passion per se (even if it's utterly irrational) is deemed perfectly acceptable, but devotion to God is generally seen as a sign of serious imbalance.

It's true. An earnest worshiper of God is likely to be regarded by our society as a deranged person—especially if he declares his faith. Meanwhile, young girls are practically expected to scream till they faint in the presence of boy-band celebrities. Men can be as fanatical as they like about their favorite sports team. Students can thoroughly immerse themselves in some mindless fantasy game. Anyone of any age can be wholly obsessed with some celebrity or pop star they have never even met. No one bats an eye at those things. Continue Reading>>>