Living Blind

According to the Bible, one of the prime impacts of sin on the human being is ... insanity. Okay, that's my word. Paul says that as people failed to honor or thank God, "they became futile in their thinking" (Rom 1:21). But, wait ... it gets worse. Believing themselves to be wise, "they became fools" (Rom 1:22) and exchanged the truth about God for the lie -- serving the creature over the Creator. The result was what we see around us every day -- "dishonorable passions" (Rom 1:26). And as an outcome of that, we end up with "a debased mind" (Rom 1:28). So I don't think my "insanity" term is too far off. The problem, in short, is that the spiritual condition of sin produces a mental condition of stupid. Or, more accurately, spiritual death produces mental death. And, as Paul also pointed out, "the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers" (2 Cor 4:4), requiring a time-consuming, long-term effort of transformation "by the renewal of your mind" (Rom 12:2). In short, sin is a spiritual problem that causes mental blindness (see, for instance, 1 Cor 2:14).

We see the results of this problem in daily living. Look, for instance, at the deep-seated results of television. This medium has the capacity to insert into our brains "reality" that isn't real. If truth is that which corresponds to reality, then television is full of lies. Yet, most moderns draw their "truth" from the television. It's not examined. It's not analyzed. It's absorbed. Blindly. So most of us here in the 21st century carry a worldview shaped by television, not reality. The point, however, is that most don't know it. They just ... believe it. This is living blind.

We see the results in pornography. While men (and women -- don't think it's just a male problem) allow their minds to be saturated more and more with more and more omnipresent sexual images, there are consequences that the blind mind misses. There are addictions. There are twisted perceptions of what sex and men and women and relationships are like. Studies show that pornography actually rewires the brain, removing the capacity for intimacy and producing pure self-interest in relationships and sex. "Oh, really?" some might object. So, ask yourself. Do you see sex as primarily intended for pleasure, or is there some other primary purpose with pleasure down the list? Thanks to porn, both the explicit via the Internet, magazines, women's romance novels and such and the implicit via the sexualization of television and movies, I think most of us now view sex as primarily intended for pleasure, with other things like "intimacy", "unity", or even "reproduction" coming way down the list. Indeed, it has so permeated our society that terms like "intimacy" and "intercourse", which used to have a broader use, are only understood now in sexual terms. If you were asked, "Did you have an 'intimate relationship' with that person?" you would assume you were being asked if it was a sexual relationship because that's where we've gotten to in our culture. Or, here, ask yourself this. If you and your spouse engaged in a sexual encounter that did not result in orgasm but certainly involved great closeness, was it a good thing, or was it a disappointment? Because, you see, thanks to our blind absorption of implicit and explicit pornography, we've become sexually stupid. And as we blindly absorb this new way of thinking, recent studies indicate that our moral compass changes. Relationships collapse because of false appetites. Infidelity becomes acceptable because of false perceptions of sex. What was considered immoral becomes "normal". Genuine intimacy decreases while promiscuity increases until the perception gets so inverted as to think that abstaining from sex is wrong, unhealthy, immoral, evil. And all the while it robs us of the sexual pleasure we seek. This is living blind.

We see the results in our online world today. A growing number of young people and older folk are turning to electronics as their biggest source of social interaction. They will text it and tweet it, post it on Facebook and show it on Instagram. They will find their circle of friends on an online game or an Internet chatroom. And they will tell you that they're being socially involved that way. To some degree, this is true. But consider more than "some degree". Consider, for instance, the time commitment of online social interaction. People are checking their email and texts and Facebook and Twitter and ... it doesn't seem to end. They have wired access and wireless access and smartphones and tablets so that there is a constant stream of "connection". How much time does that consume? Because this is a simple fact: When you are doing something, you are not doing something else. "Oh," they will tell me, "I'm multitasking." Are you aware that there is no such thing as genuine multitasking? The brain doesn't work that way. So you can spend 10% of your attention on this and 10% of your attention on that and 60% of your attention on this other and still have 20% left over, but in no case are you spending 100% of your attention on anything when you interweave your tasks. So some things are getting attention and some are not. Some things are getting your time and some are not. Then there is the reality that there is no real interaction. You don't get facial expressions, body language, that snicker that follows the remark that tells you it wasn't serious, a hug needed after a bad day, or any genuine connection. You get ... words. Not much more. Maybe a picture. Not real interaction. Indeed, you don't get any real action. We are told to "be imitators" both of Christ and of godly people. We are to be ambassadors and examples and lights in the dark where the Father is glorified by our good works, not our good words. We agree that it is good to care for people in need, but doing so on the Internet just doesn't happen. In fact, Jesus said people would know we are His disciples by our love for one another (John 13:35). The command is to love. John wrote, "Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18). I don't think I need to point out that social media cannot produce much more than "word or talk" and is incapable of producing "deed". That requires a physical person.

Does this mean that we should avoid television or pornography or the Internet? Well, pornography, yes. And in so far as television and movies and the Internet lead us into sin, yes. But I'm not suggesting either that we give up all television or social media or that I'm doing this perfectly. I'm suggesting that we don't live blindly. Remember, the problem of Natural Man is a spiritual condition that causes a mental condition. We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We need to love God with all our minds (among other things). We need to think! Examine. "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!" (Lam 3:40). "Test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thess 5:21). We need to "Abstain from every form of evil" (1 Thess 5:22). Beyond that, think it through. Maybe a little social media is helpful, but clearly a lot is not. Maybe there is a practical use for a television on occasion, but when social media and television become the reasons we don't have time for God, His Word, or His people, clearly there's a problem. I'm not asking you to give all that up (except, of course, sin). I'm asking you not to live blindly. Think!