My Steiner relation might disown me for making such an obvious literary blunder in the title of this post. In another post, I encourage ‘participant mindset’. I suggest that the disease of American spectatorism is against God’s will. To back up this claim just a little, consider what God said in Genesis 1:28. Then man’s response in Genesis 5-7. Then God’s response in Genesis 9:1. Then man’s response in Genesis 11:4, then God’s response in Genesis 11:8. Consider the sin of Sodom as described in Ezekiel 16:49. I believe the American concept of retirement to be scarily reminiscent of Luke 12:19.
This interview got a lot of chatter in social media but it is no more likely that any American intuitions will change than it was for Vanity Fair to repent at the warnings and denunciations of Christian and Faithful in “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Read that fascinating exchange here and here. Scottie, what you are really saying is that idle worship leaves a person feeling….empty…directionless…confused. Scottie, I hope you throw all those shiny objects away and encourage people to get up and go do something meaningful. Being the best in the world at a meaningless skill, one which blesses no one, which doesn’t fulfill the Genesis mandate to steward God’s resources toward greater potential and blessing in this world, is as void of fulfillment as Scottie describes. The world demands that if you want to speak against its institutions, you can only do so if you are inside the system–otherwise you have no authority. God speaks with authority from the outset against the world’s systems. We don’t have to wade into the world’s systems in order to say, ‘yep, it was just like God said it would be!’
Pursuing ease in life is idle worship and idol worship.