By Joseph Mattera
With the collapse of Judeo/Christian values in Western culture, people are left to frame their lives through means that are not defined by the biblical narrative.
Thus, presently, there is a free-for-all system where every person defines their own laws, ethics and values. Self-expression is the new ethos, and even if self-destructive lifestyles diminish the quality of a society, restricting it is a great taboo and cited as a form of bigotry.
As traditional narratives continue to be deconstructed, this has also resulted in a loss of the collective metanarrative for understanding the world. This leads to uncertainty, nihilism and a feeling-based morality that determines public policy in which one’s identity trumps psychology above biology.
In the past, people made up for this loss of the biblical metanarrative primarily by deriving their identity from their ethnicity. However, with a rapid acceleration in individualism, autonomous secular humans are left with a reductionist mindset that has further collapsed their existential perspective to mere individual expression. Hence the popular saying, “I am trying to be the best version of myself.”
This has led to an erosion of society into polarized interest groups made up of individuals cohering together as perceived outcasts, victims or other entrenched (proletariat) categories, myopically promoting their agenda rather than that of the common good of society, leading to a polarized and divided nation.
In Genesis 1, God framed the created order with biological distinctions regarding the botanic, animal and human species, all with the capacity and propensity to multiply after their kind.
God could do this initially through His glory Spirit hovering over and subduing the abyss (the oceans and the deep), which stood for chaos, fluidity and instability in the Hebraic mindset.
The Hebrew concept of the abyss also connects to a dragon-like chaos monster. In Genesis 1:2, the Hebrew word used for “abyss” is תְּהוֹם (pronounced “Tehom”) and is typically translated as “the deep” or “abyss.” The concept of Tehom in ancient Hebrew cosmology often connotes a fluid, unstable, chaotic mass of waters controlled by a dragon, similar to the ancient Near Eastern mythological (Babylonian) chaos monster, Tiamat. In these myths, the chaotic waters are often personified as monstrous beings defeated or controlled by a powerful deity. Hence, some scholars view this portion of Scripture as theological messaging by Moses, illustrating that Yahweh was the only true God who could subdue the chaos, not the contemporary mythical gods Baal or Marduk.
Corresponding to His ability to subdue chaos and fluidity, God made both male and female in His image to represent Him and to subdue the earth (Gen.1:27-28).
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Consequently, it took both a man and a woman to express God’s image to exert dominion over creation; one man or woman could not fully express God’s image and likeness, nor could two men or two women. It takes both masculinity and femininity in covenant marriage to fully transmit God’s image to the next generation to continually perpetuate God’s kingdom influence.
Hence, before any further development of civilization existed, marriage between one man and one woman was the foundation of maintaining order and subduing the chaos in the created order.
Connected to this equilibrium that maintained order is that God originally framed humanity with two genders based on a biological framework, not a psychological one.
(Of course, God designed the psychological makeup of both males and females to be congruent with their biological birth, both being physiologically different but complementary.)
Unfortunately, when Adam and Eve sinned, they lost the full image of God embodied in the glory Spirit that hovered over and subdued the abyss. Hence, after the fall, they knew they were naked, as the glory of God was no longer covering them.
Furthermore, by listening to the serpent’s voice (Gen. 3:1-8), they could no longer subdue the abyss, thus allowing the demonic to be released upon the earth through the ensuing chaos that wreaked havoc in the created order.
Genesis 6 even alludes to a narrative in which fallen angels mingled with the human race, resulting in waters flooding the earth and destroying all but Noah and his family. It was the mixture of human and demonic seed that compromised the binary union of male and female, which destroyed the first civilization.
(Whether it was a fallen angel having sex with beautiful women through demonized human men or it was fallen angels is not the point here. Suffice it to say, something insidious that was described in Genesis 6 accelerated the proliferation of sin in humanity that released the flood.)
Thus, even in our day, when the ethical and biological boundary markers of Yahweh are violated, including the socially acceptable practice of gender fluidity regarding human sexuality, we open the door to a chaotic state that releases a flood that negatively impacts every aspect of human society.
In many ways, the flood has been released, dissipating the difference between a male and a female and between humans and animals. This is why we have not only people identifying as the opposite of their biological sex but also pansexuals (fluidity in gender in which they can identify as a man or woman on any given day based on their feelings). They also can identify as “furries,” in which children identify themselves as a dog, a cat or some other animal, even licking other students, walking on all fours and lopping up food like a beast.
The flood has also resulted in the collapse of functional national borders, which enable millions of migrants to cross borders without properly being vetted.
The flood has also diminished the quality of life as city officials have refused to penalize various crimes, resulting in a massive rise in shoplifting, with a sharp rise in mentally ill, homeless people terrifying citizens in the streets and subways. The roots of all these societal maladies can be traced back to the decades-long attack against the nuclear family, resulting in no-fault divorce, a societal celebration of promiscuity and the proliferation of pornography, leaving many broken families in its aftermath:
— Eighty-five percent of youths in prison come from fatherless homes.
— Seventy-one percent of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.
— Ninety percent of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
— Nearly 25 million children live without their biological father.
— Sixty percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
The only solution is for civilization to return to the original patterns of creation, reflecting the image of God through biblical marriage, family, gender and procreation, as the foundation of civilization and to take heed to the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16, ESV).
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Dr. Joseph Mattera is an internationally known author, consultant and theologian whose mission is to influence leaders who influence culture. He is the founding pastor of Resurrection Church and leads several organizations, including the U.S. Coalition of Apostolic Leaders and Christ Covenant Coalition.
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