Attitude of Heart

During the 1980s and 1990s it became fashionable in Europe, UK and partly in America, to be 'green', to recognise our responsibility towards the rest of creation. A friend of mine exchanged his prestigious car for a smaller more efficient one, telling me it was for environmental reasons. But not long afterwards, I found he had exchanged that one for a more prestigious car again, on the grounds that "God loves you; does He not wants you to have the best?" But what counts as 'best'? His heart had not changed: it seems he still hankered after things and prestige rather than after responsibility.

What happened in my friend's case happened even more so in the public sphere. The reasoning is usually without reference to God, but to humanity or to the economy. During the era of temporary environmental concern, Americans became willing to buy smaller, more efficient cars - but then they returned to seeing large fuel-wasteful cars as 'best'. The behaviour of the people might have changed temporarily, but the heart of the people did not change.

In the public sphere, Governments started to institute more environmentally responsible policies - for example the UK set a target for reduction of climate change emissions of 80% by 2050 - but spoke with forked tongue. In the UK the Government ensured that carbon reduction was not the main aim of energy policy; security of energy supply was alongside it, and guess which one of those won out! At the 2008 Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, the USA showed itself as extremely reluctant to take on its responsibility for climate change emissions. Then came the recession. Governments started to downplay the importance of environmental responsibility. Though governments showed an responsible face for a while, the heart of the people in government did not change.

What is 'Heart'?

Most Western governments today "don't do God". Or perhaps they do, their god being their own strength - strength of economy, technology, influence or military. It is whatever we treat as our god that determines why things matter. It is our gods that shape our beliefs and attitudes. Do not the following reveal the gods of the Western mindset to which most aspire?

• that self-interest and self-preservation is assumed OK throughout the media;
• the presupposition of competition capitalism (for a different view, see Quaker Capitalism);
• advertising and marketing are not primarily for the benifit of the purchaser but of the producer;
• the desire for fun and enjoyment overruling the basic needs of those we forget;
• the mindset that governs all media, deeper than the left-right split;
• the narrowed views of those who deny responsibility;
• the self-interest and self-protection of major industries.

Usually our gods are hidden, deeper than our outward professions of faith. Our gods work at the depth of our hearts. And even Christians seem to have gods other than the True God whom they purport to represent.

The Solution

Jesus tells the parable of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Son, so that seemingly safe 'sheep' and 'sons' - seemingly safe people of God - will not see themselves as superior but will rejoice with God over the finding of the lost (Zepheniah 3:17 "He will exult over you" reinforces Jesus' "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 people who have no need to repent"). All Creation is loved. And we have to represent God to it, sharing God's heart, and not represent ourselves. But, as explained elsewhere (e.g. Three Dimensional Salvation) this does not happen by human effort of will or mind but by the Spirit of God working in us.

The growth of the church in Europe and North America has been among those like us. But why? The challenge is to reach out to the poor, to those not like us, to those who are mentally or emotionally challenged, to the angry downtrodden (realising their anger is something their response rather than their heart; and we should not require them to renounce it before coming to Christ). In heart, there is little difference, whoever we are.

A CASE STUDY OF ATTITUDE OF HEART

World War 1

• Start of WW1: Germany invading tiny Belguim and the treatment of Belgian civilians with savagery. This changed British public attitudes. Mustn't run away. The German attack horrified rest of Europe. Sense of indignation that we are in regression not progress.
• Germany thought they needed to wipe out France in weeks so they could turn attention to Russia.
• Sense of paranoia. In German ranks, the sense that Belgians civilians are all ====s who want to stab Germans in back. Attitude. From Prussian war of 1870s. German troops killed 5921 civilians, named victims, in Belgium. Top of German command said 'kill resisters' but it went down to ranks as 'kill everyone'.
• Heroic martyred Belgium.
• The burning of the celebrated university library at Loeven, with killing of 150 civilians. German soldiers running through streets like madmen shooting all. How could Germans, so ====d in music and learning, have done that!
• Whole of neutral world scandalised by German conduct.
• In Germany the war was seen as defending civilization against the Russian Slavs. Germans could not be doing that in Belgium. Germans
• In UK, the press was always in favour of war, but public not. However, the atrocities swayed the public. British identified with Belgians - a small industrialised country like UK. "If the Germans come here they will have no mercy on us."
• The stories are not being invented by UK Government, but by the people themselves. It was an Dutch artist who cemented the atrocity in the minds. "I never knew what we were fighting for before."
• In Germany some felt Britain was the cunning figure that drove France and Russia against Germany. Fear of Britain.
• Hartlepool and N England took Belgian refugees. German cruisers shelled and battered Hartlepool. What was the German object in attacking this? Started fear of big German invasion. Pages devoted to this in the coming days. UK government tries to censor the papers but news gets out.
• ['show them might']
• Revenge in British "I would like to see a German town Loeveyed flattened".
• Recruitment posters showed Scarborough r.t. Hartlepool. Hartlepool recruits quarter of the population for the war, 22000 men.
• By end 1914, a million men died; the British expeditionary force was ground up.
• Then British propaganda changed gear. Organised mass meetings. Demonization of enemy. 'Sign up or sell out'.
• Chair of British investigation was initially against war (Price?), and his report was fair.
• Zeppelins raining down on British civilians. U-boat sinks Cunard Lucitania. In attempt to cripple British economy (insurance rates to rise, incoming tourism to fall).
• British propaganda strategy, aimed at elite not masses. The work from these great writers would have far more effect than shrieking headlines. *** British propaganda is cool. British [charity] help for Belgian civilians.
• Germany wages propaganda war in USA, but not as well as allies. Allies propaganda showed actual events, like Lucitania, which had 100 Americans on board. The Price report showed unequivocal evidence. German propaganda could not compete. Lots US people wanted to go to war.
• 20000 Belgians enslaved.
• Versailles Treaty. Lawyers argued about how to do Germany. Wanted to prosecute for war crimes. Great bitterness that stories buried. Cannot extradite from Germany so get war criminals to be tried in Leipzig.
• 10 years later British cooled. Lots turned pacifists. The real enemy was not German but war itself. Ponsonby indicts war. "Injection of poison of hatred into mens minds is worse than the evils of war itself." But Ponsonby said the atrocities were untrue, created by lying British propagandas. Robt Graves 'Goodbye to all that' pacifist. "Whipped into blind hatred by british propaganda". But soldiers on leave, nurses in hospitals etc. told the story.
• "This war would not have lasted as long as it did without the ====ok of the people====. .... the role we play in propaganda as the public."
• The government might have demonized Germans but the atrocities were no inventions.

  11 February 2014

• At the end of the war the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany. But it also included Article 231, by which Germany accepted 'War Guilt' for all the suffering and damage caused by the war. Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, being a solicitor by background, believed there was a need to establish legal basis for demanding reparations. [But
  • there is much more to life than legalities. Attitude and vision cannot be reduced to the juridical aspect of life. And it was these that made Germany so bitter and paved the way for the rise of Hitler. Even though there may well be juridical reasons our decisions should not be driven solely by them. Especially if, as in this case, it was the attitude of vengeance by France that demanded this clause.

  • Why does guilt have to be put all on one party? Are we not all guilty in some way?
  ]

This page, URL= "http://abxn.org/nv/attitude.html", is part of the on-going work in developing a 'New View' in theology and practice that is appropriate to the days that are coming upon us. Comments, queries welcome by emailing

       

Compiled by Andrew Basden as part of his reflections from a Christian perspective. Copyright (c) Andrew Basden to latest date below, but you may use this material for almost any purpose, but subject to certain conditions.

Written on the Amiga with Protext in the style of classic HTML.

Created: 4 February 2014. Last updated: 1 March 2014 Heart of people did not change; intro. 3 March 2014 examples of attitudes from gods, some minor changes, headings. 30 May 2021 rejoicing when lost found; new .end/.nav. 26 September 2024 canon, bgc.