Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon.

-- R. Burns Epistle to a Young Friend

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Majority

Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by gangs who have no opinion -- and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is stronger) assume its opinions ... while truth again reverts to a new minority -- Soren Kierkegaard
Read that again.

It is kind of clichéd to talk about how the Church seems to prosper under persecution.  I was always one for hoping that we could simply steamroll our way into the future (speaking of cliches), but that seems contrary to human nature.  When you are committed to truth, relevance is, well, irrelevant, but Kierkegaard speaks of "opinions", more applicable in the political realm which necessarily adapts to the situational, grounded, though -- we hope, in the absolute.   

Yet, as you have more than half of a nation thinking that all truth is relative and that opinions and feelings, models and maps are reality, manipulation now becomes trivial.  The majority will follow and cling to "trending".

Stumpy the Remnant.

And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.
The holy seed is its stump.

(Isaiah 6:13)

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
(Isaiah 11:1)

3 comments:

julie said...

I am often reminded of the Bandar-log: "We all say so, and so it must be true!"

robinstarfish said...

It doesn't take much salt to clean out a wound.

mushroom said...

Indeed, Sodom would have been spared for the sake of ten righteous people.

Yes, Julie, after all, why would we lie?