“No One Was Ever Happy!”
There’s a meme floating around that has been on my mind. It’s an illustration of a 1950s backyard cookout, much like the one above, with a wojak pointing at it saying it’s all lies. “No one was ever happy!”–something like that.
I tried to find it for you. Instead you will have to rely on my masterful verbal description.
What the meme reflects is the Freudian-Progressive tendency in our culture to assume that everything normal and apparently functional is a lie, the reality is misery and oppression.
Like so much else, this is debased Christianity.
Unfortunately, it is a form of debased Christianity that is current among Christians.
The Christian truth this takes off of is that we are all fallen sinners. Without exception. “For all have sinned,” says Paul.
But if you don’t have a vision of divine excellence, the blazing goodness that God has made you for, then the only way you can understand sin is grossness and perversion.
It’s only when you truly understand your mission and role that you can understand how you are a sinner even if you are happy and well.
There is a second half to Paul’s couplet without which the first is incomplete. “For all have sinned,” says Paul, “and fall short of the glory of God.”
Sute
July 2, 2025
“For all have sinned,” says Paul, “and fall short of the glory of God.”
This is a great definition of sin in my book, if you look at the sentence in reverse. Falling short of the glory of God is sin, which is why we’ve all done it.
The modern(?) take that sin is only those malevolent, evil and terrible things is the wrong take. Sin is real, pervasive, and in some sense the default position. It encompasses everything we do and don’t do that falls short of being Christ-like.
Zen
July 2, 2025
Of course they were miserable.
Otherwise, things have degenerated greatly since then and we need to repent in sackcloth and ashes.
More seriously..
Since they don’t want to have to live in families and have committed relationships, they have to find fault with it. It is projection. Likewise, I think that a lot of people who complain about their parents, have not necessarily suffered abuse. They just wanted a convenient scapegoat so they can live as they please, without attachments.
G.
July 2, 2025
Sute,
that is well said