I’ve just started rereading a volume of Uncle Arthur stories sent to me a couple years ago by my friend Karen. whose five-star ebay store features rare and out-of-print children’s books.
Uncle Arthur is the ultimate in comfort reading. He never fails to sweep me back to my life’s best days, when I was utterly dependent upon my parents, not even vaguely interested in anything they didn’t approve of. In my eyes, they were all-wise and all-loving and all-wonderful and wanted only the very best for me.
And day after day, they delivered in every way imaginable – not the least of which involved reading me Uncle Arthur’s gentle stories of other children who learn, through the unpleasant consequences of their little rebellions, the incalculable value of biblical truth.
Alas, I grew up and discovered the pleasures of the world, the flesh and the devil. I left behind all I’d learned from my idyllic childhood to spend four decades chasing precisely the things that God warns against.
I was far from alone, of course. In the 1960s, my generation launched on all-out assault on Christianity. It has taken a half a century, and skirmishes continue. But it looks like the enemies of God are destined to win this leg of the war, and to succeed in putting their god on the throne of this world for seven horrific years.
The big battles seem to be over: God and His word have been driven out of the public square. It’s fine to kill babies even as they emerge from the womb. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are on their way to becoming the law of the land. Children are quite right to disrespect and abandon their elderly. And biblical morality, the last refuge of those dangerous religious fanatics, is only to be whispered about behind closed doors.
Now, with the major issues settled to the devil’s satisfaction, we are seeing even the most preposterous attacks succeed.
Just one example: Some pointy-headed British philosopher has decided that parents who read to their children – parents with the audacity to raise their children in loving homes – are giving them an unfair advantage in life.
“Evidence shows,” says this philosopher, “that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t – the difference in their life chances – is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t.”
Well, we can’t have that, can we?
Perhaps it’s time to hide our Uncle Arthur libraries, folks. Time, too, to get serious about hiding the word of God in our hearts; at this rate, it won’t be long before they come for our Bibles.
Uncle Arthur is the ultimate in comfort reading. He never fails to sweep me back to my life’s best days, when I was utterly dependent upon my parents, not even vaguely interested in anything they didn’t approve of. In my eyes, they were all-wise and all-loving and all-wonderful and wanted only the very best for me.
And day after day, they delivered in every way imaginable – not the least of which involved reading me Uncle Arthur’s gentle stories of other children who learn, through the unpleasant consequences of their little rebellions, the incalculable value of biblical truth.
Alas, I grew up and discovered the pleasures of the world, the flesh and the devil. I left behind all I’d learned from my idyllic childhood to spend four decades chasing precisely the things that God warns against.
I was far from alone, of course. In the 1960s, my generation launched on all-out assault on Christianity. It has taken a half a century, and skirmishes continue. But it looks like the enemies of God are destined to win this leg of the war, and to succeed in putting their god on the throne of this world for seven horrific years.
The big battles seem to be over: God and His word have been driven out of the public square. It’s fine to kill babies even as they emerge from the womb. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are on their way to becoming the law of the land. Children are quite right to disrespect and abandon their elderly. And biblical morality, the last refuge of those dangerous religious fanatics, is only to be whispered about behind closed doors.
Now, with the major issues settled to the devil’s satisfaction, we are seeing even the most preposterous attacks succeed.
Just one example: Some pointy-headed British philosopher has decided that parents who read to their children – parents with the audacity to raise their children in loving homes – are giving them an unfair advantage in life.
“Evidence shows,” says this philosopher, “that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t – the difference in their life chances – is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t.”
Well, we can’t have that, can we?
Perhaps it’s time to hide our Uncle Arthur libraries, folks. Time, too, to get serious about hiding the word of God in our hearts; at this rate, it won’t be long before they come for our Bibles.
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