• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

The Power of the Culture of Silence Continued

"Truth". "Darkness". "Secular culture." "People who want little to do with Him (God)."

I don't know about anyone else, but the thing that struck me is that the study guide names and yet does not name who it is that it is talking about. It's one of those things that you have to be "in the know" about. Well, I can tell you who and what--it's my school, for one. I mean, My God, they teach--are you ready for this?--Evolution! Cultural relativity! A secular worldview that glorifies "the human being through philosophy, athletics, religion and the arts."

Does Dobson really understand the full import of what he is saying here? "Philosophy, athletics, religion, and the arts." What IS he saying? That the same battles the Essenes fought in, oh, I don't know, 100 BC are the same battles that Christians fight or ought to fight in 2014 AD? Tell me how this can be anything but an attempt to divide Christians from secular education?

The other day I watched a video called "Deconversion, Belief, and the Power of Silence" by a young man calling himself Purple Fox. I'd post a link to it but I haven't managed to do this on this new computer yet. It's over on a site called Top Documentary Films. Although Purple Fox and I come from different backgrounds, we share a lot in common. I was especially touched by his descriptions of the attitudes he brought with him to college. This was one arrogant kid. He admits it now. He says that there was one professor that could have saved him years of suffering IF he'd only listened to the guy. But he had the TRUTH and this guy did not.

And then Purple Fox suffered a crisis of faith that led to an emotional and mental breakdown, what the Catholic mystics call the "Dark Night of the Soul." But Purple Fox's evangelical background does not have any words to describe this experience. It simply does not exist in that culture. So Purple Fox struggled alone. There was nobody that he could talk to except God, and God was silent. "I could not lie and I could not tell the truth, so all I had left was silence," he says. Deconversion was the only way he could see out and he fought against it tooth and nail. It was a wrenching experience.

I sent an email--with the link embedded--to one of my friends at my old church who is starting a counseling ministry and told her, "You really need to see this video. Because as he says, there is a culture of silence regarding these things. There's no safe place in the church for someone like him to work out these doubts and feelings. As a result you don't know what others may be going through until one Sunday their seat is empty and no one knows why." I told her that that was why I had fled to the Unitarian-Universalists and I was far from being the only one who had found spiritual refuge there. I said we need to deal with this culture of silence. And the answer I got--silence. Granted, she is a busy person. But she did not even acknowledge my email. Nor do I think she ever will--unless I bring it up, and then there will be an excuse. She fails to see--or maybe she does see---this is exactly what I am talking about. Maybe the silence is deliberate, a blow-off, because that is how Christians are taught to respond. Let's forget about it and move on to other things.

Except that now there is a game-changer. Purple Fox said he made his video so that no one else in his situation would have to go through what he did. Good Christian parents and grandparents, I'll give you a hint. It's not just pornography you have to worry about on the Internet. It's sites with names like "Ex-Christian", "Deconversion", "Internet Infidels", and so on. While you are burying your heads in the sand, people like Purple Fox are producing videos. Writing blogs. Even this one. And people are watching, reading.

The Culture of Silence is being broken.

Comments

There are no comments to display.

Blog entry information

Author
Spinning Compass
Read time
3 min read
Views
716
Last update

More entries in Education / Employment

More entries from Spinning Compass

Share this entry

Top Bottom