All posts by Dr. Charlie Self

Hopeful Realism for 2024, Part 2

As we look ahead to 2024 and beyond, I hope that all of us can be hopeful and realistic so that we can achieve more than we thought possible, and we can weather the unexpected with grace. Here are some more observations for the year ahead:

Realism: Social media will continue captivating and ensnaring far too many people, draining creativity and energy.

Hope: May we spend more time with family and friends, learn to use a fountain pen, read printed books, and enjoy the outdoors without a phone in hand.

Hopeful realism: May we see more reflections than reactions and more conversations over mere condemnations.

Realism: Jews and Christians will continue facing severe persecution globally, with little notice from non-religious leaders or neighbors.

Hope: People of conscience will realize that each of us must desire and protect for others the liberties we expect for ourselves.

Hopeful realism: Many will consider becoming Christians or renewing their faith as they recognize the cohesiveness and compassion of Jesus. And many Christians will appreciate the Jewish roots of our faith for the first time.

Realism: The American and global economy will continue struggling as significant adjustments take place due to poor planning, risky investments, and changes in labor and production.

Hope: We will see some improvements in interest rates and job growth, due to normal developments and the results of the political desires of investors.

Hopeful realism: As local and state governments face realities, some will wisely tighten their belts and thoughtfully allocate resources, while removing barriers to business expansion.

And finally, your humble author believes that we are on the cusp of a spiritual awakening that will overflow into neighborhoods and nations as people not only have religious encounters in church, but kindly and thoughtfully serve their families, colleagues, and friends as a thank you to the grace of God. For such love in action, some will face persecution. But the pressures of opponents will only increase their fortitude, and once again, we will see the goodness of God on display.

May we all be hopeful realists, with greater expectations of what God can do, sober awareness of our own shortcomings, and a willingness to extend ourselves to others.

Hopeful Realism for 2024, Part 1

Every new year begins with forecasts and predictions for the coming months. Some of these are thoughtful prognostications rooted in good research and reflection. Other are subjective guesses, offered as clickbait in a fantastical or fatalistic spirit. In this essay, I want to offer some pithy statements to stimulate thoughtfulness and ethical action. In a world awash with extremes, I hope these will encourage hearts and empower creativity.

Realism: We will continue seeing President Trump hounded by his enemies and his supporters labeled as extremists.

Hope: Both parties will offer alternatives to the current and previous administrations.

Hopeful realism: Perhaps we can debate important issues like the budget, immigration, foreign policy, and a balanced view of the environment.

Realism: Gender anarchists will continue advocating for unsafe procedures on minors and insist that identity is purely subjective.

Hope: Thoughtful people are waking up to the destructive narcissism and big pharma influences on impressionable young people.

Hopeful realism: Permitting adults (on their dime) to modify and express their identity is part of a free society. At the same time, parents must retain final authority in caring for their children.

Realism: Israel will be criticized regardless of her military or political actions by intersectional radicals that think she is an oppressor of Palestinians.

Hope: Thoughtful folks will see that Israel wants peace with her neighbors. This is only possible with a new generation of Arab leaders willing to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as the national home of the Jewish people.

Hopeful realism: Israel will win the current conflict and will establish security measures, allow aid to flow, and attempt to welcome a peaceful solution for both Gaza and the West Bank.

Realism: Colleges and universities will face further reckonings concerning true freedom of ideas and speech.

Hope: Educational leaders will restore the true exchange of ideas and not allow agitators to veto presentations.

Hopeful realism: We will continue seeing older institutions refuse to change their ways while new, entrepreneurial ones find success.

We will continue exploring the future in the next essay. Here is some food for thought as we step forward this year. Let’s reject fatalism (“Nothing will change…”) and fantasy (Everything will be wonderful…”)  and choose faith, hope, and love as our dispositions and discover a future filled with unexpected delights, inexplicable challenges, and increasing wisdom.

Thankfulness is the Antidote to Narcissism

As my wife Kathy was walking from her arrival gate to the trains at the Denver airport one evening, she observed in one person’s behavior a portrait of our self-centered era. The person was very well-dressed, with every item chosen carefully and labeled just so. As they were speaking on the phone, Kathy heard these words in a loud voice, “O my, it is so noisy here. I think I am going to have a panic attack.”  Kathy was concerned and prepared to help. The next words were all about parties and restaurants and how crazy other people are. This person jauntily walked in another direction, looking at themselves in every reflective space while carrying on an insipid conversation.

In this moment, Kathy saw a microcosm of the self-absorption of modern society. Panic attacks are real and over the years we have helped many who suffer from them. To use such a phrase in casual conversation was foolish and unveils the weaponizing of psychological terms to serve selfish purposes. Obsession with image, selfish obliviousness of all around, and the feeling that the world somehow owes us are all part of the narcissistic playbook.

This same lust for personal gratification and focus on superficial sufferings is the driving force behind the recruitment of vulnerable adolescents into the “welcoming” communities of the gender anarchists. One a good day, adolescence for young women and men is challenging. Wanting to be different from one’s parents and accepted by peers are normal realities, but the radicals take it further, preying on struggles with self-image and hypnotically suggesting one can be any number of genders and even change biological identity.

There is an antidote for these afflictions: Thankfulness. Also understood as gratitude, this is a powerful tonic for personal and social liberation. From the ancient scriptures to modern psychological studies, thankfulness is celebrated as necessary for human flourishing. (See our take on gratitude in our new book, Life in 5D: A New Vision of Discipleship, found at www.discipleshipdynamics.com)

Thankfulness is more than immediate gratitude for current positive circumstances. There are four facets of this amazing characteristic. First, it is a disposition deeply rooted in recognizing that all of life is a gift from the Creator. The giftedness and givenness of life are extraordinary in themselves. The fact we are alive and able to think about these things is extraordinary. We did not create ourselves. Our parents were subcontractors of a divine architect who cares about us from conception to coronation.

A second facet of thankfulness arises from appreciation of the simple blessings we take for granted: food and shelter, family and friends, work and play, and so much more. Even in very distressing circumstances, thankfulness arises from our awareness that we are able to endure and come through such trials a better person.

A third facet is found among those who are serious Christians: thankfulness for our salvation by the grace of God. We cannot earn the favor or merit we need before a holy Lord…but Jesus the Lamb of God has died in our stead and as the Risen Lord he is our Advocate. We are considered just and holy before God!

A fourth (and there are many more) facet of thankfulness comes from realizing that we are new creations in Christ, with a divine purpose and every resource we need to carry out the mission of God in our world. It is astonishing to consider the “divine inefficiency” of using our voices and acts of kindness, our halting speech and imperfect deeds to help repair the world.

This Thanksgiving, let’s remember the Pilgrims and other historical moments of goodness where people cooperated across cultural and ethnic divides. May we humble ourselves, recognize the giftedness of life, and aim to be an answer to the spoken and unspoken prayers of those in need. 

Having a Clean Conscience and a Clear Head: Sanity in an Upside-Down World

Every day we are inundated with information on personal growth, including new elixirs, exercise programs, and new age philosophies promising mindfulness and wellness. While some of this information has value, the proponents of these ideas (OK, the marketing teams) often leave out more substantial insights leading to human flourishing.

Alongside the quick fixes and snake oils are more serious issues, with many struggling for healing and wholeness, personal purpose, and progress in life. Compassion is in order as we help others overcome a variety of abuses and afflictions.

A third reality is infecting our world: delayed adulthood and many never becoming adults emotionally or mentally, trapped in an adolescence that will one day become premature senility. Until the last 75 years, adulthood began in the teen years and fully blossomed in one’s twenties. Then an extended “youth culture” was invented and three generations (in the Western middle and upper classes) have been raised with the notion that “adulting” can be delayed to the 30s.

How do we bring a modicum of sanity to the emotional and social anarchy metastasizing on social media? There is hope, and it is found in the enduring insights of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures (The Old Testament for Christians). There is wisdom to resist the schemes of consumerism, find healing from trauma, and become responsible adults contributing to community flourishing.

The foundation of true knowledge and wisdom, intones Proverbs 1:7, is the fear of the Lord. This is not the visceral fear we often have on the freeway or overlooking a cliff, or even of violence. This is a deep respect and reverence for the Almighty rooted in God’s character and nature. When we humble ourselves under God’s holy and loving leadership, we gain perspective and understand principles for authentic and joyful living.

Before sharing the two insights, there is one more foundation needed. We may need divine help (most often delivered through caring people) to overcome the abuses, pains, and rejections we have experienced. Just saying to some people, “Get with it!” without knowing their story is insensitive and unhelpful. There is healing and hope in the presence of God and it is often mediated by caring counselors and friends.

With the foundations of humility and healing, here are two attributes that will help us stay out of the quicksand of cultural confusion and rescue others as well. The first is cultivating a clean conscience. In Psalm 51:10, a repentant King David cries out to God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God…” Reflecting on God’s providential presence and care from conception, David also petitions the Lord in Psalm 139:23 to do surgery in the soul: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Taking time in God’s presence and allowing the Holy Spirit to examine our attitudes and actions, motivations and words, will yield deep inner peace. It is divine love that brings gentle correction. As we learn God’s ways, we will find the desires and disciplines that cultivate new habits of speech and service. A clean conscience also means making amends quickly in known conflicts, and saying no to activities that offer easy ways of exploiting others.

The second attribute arises from the first: With a clean conscience, we can have clear minds. We can learn how to think critical and reflective thinking, avoiding rash actions and opinions, and becoming fully informed on important issues. Psalm 19:14 brings this to light: “May the words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, My rock and my Redeemer.”

A clear mind includes thinking critically about the ideas and issues. It is good taking time to process reactions. We can also prayerfully consider Scripture and tradition, pursuing good research. After these activities, we present our convictions with humility and compassion. We can contribute to our own maturity, and help our circles of influence think critically and reflectively.

Why does all this matter?

Our internet/social media world is quick to react, slow to listen, and relies on ideology over good information. Too often immature people prefer narrow narratives over the tapestry that helps us see the truth of any matter. When we cultivate a clean conscience and clear mind, we are bringing our best selves to our world, joining with God in its repair.

Peace in the Middle East

Every day I hear and we read in various articles, “If only Israel would stop building settlements, welcome back 5,000,000 Arab refugees, and treat the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza well, there would be peace.” After all, it was the UN, Europe, and the USA that imposed a Jewish state on a peaceful land.”

Every point in the above paragraph is wrong. The people advocating these ideas (with a few naïve followers as exceptions) know they are outright fabrications. There CAN be peace in the Middle East, but the price cannot be the destruction of the State of Israel.

“OK, OK, let’s go back to the 1949 Armistice Lines and negotiate from there.”

Friends, Israel has come close multiple times to doing just that. She has offered a shared capital in East Jerusalem, up to 92-97% of lands acquired in 1967 for a new Palestinian State, and given the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, Gaza back to the Palestinian Authority, and made many other overtures. Every time (1978, 1993, 2000, 2008, 2015) peace is offered, Palestinian leaders find a reason to refuse and call for more terror.

“What about the descendants of the thousands of refugees from 1947-1949? Shouldn’t they be able to return to their original villages? After all, they were exiled by war.”

Well, the number of direct refugees is disputed (400,000 were displaced, half by war, half by believing they would return in weeks after the Jews were destroyed). Israel cannot absorb millions of hostile Arabs into her nation. This is why a new Palestinian State should be created! The Arab nations have deliberately refused to assimilate these refugees, working with the former KGB to fabricate a Palestinian national identity in the 1960s. By the way, Palestinian Authority President Abbas has already declared that a new state will be, “Jew-free.” (Echoes of the Nazis) This is in contrast to the two million Arab citizens in Israel.

Is there any hope?

Yes.

The hope is that a handful of courageous and influential Arab leaders will build on the Camp David Accords and the Abraham Accords, and call for recognition of Israel as a legitimate home for the Jewish people, renounce terrorism, and negotiate a way forward.

“This sounds great! There must be peaceful Muslims ready to do this!”

Here is the catch: the moment Arab Muslim leaders renounce Hamas and Hezbollah, dismantle the Palestinian Jihad, and say yes to a Jewish nation, they are targets for assassination. The West forgets a few inconvenient facts about Islamic history:

  • Islam has never produced a true pluralistic society where women and men of all faiths or none are complete equals.
  • Anwar Sadat made peace in 1978 and was killed in 1981 by radical Islamists.
  • Generations of Muslims in the Middle East have been brainwashed concerning the Jews, seeing them as inveterate enemies and less than human. Reading the school curricula is chilling.
  • Antisemitism is a demonic stronghold that reappears globally every generation. Jihadists are emboldened by Western criticisms of Israel and underlying Jew-hatred. 

Is there a way forward? Yes! If millions of people of conscience rise up in support of Israel’s right to exist in safety and condemn all forms of antisemitism. If every person of conscience will refuse to accept a symmetry of evil and call out the evil found in Hamas, Hezbollah, and all that justify the killing civilians, it will make a difference. It is time to hold the USA government accountable for their wishy-washy policies and have our State Department end its century of institutional antisemitism.

Courageous Muslim leaders, with the support of millions of freedom-loving allies, and the full economic and military support of the West, can create a new era of peace.

Praying today for the Peace of Jerusalem.