Concerning Governance of the Tongue

In about 1655 Richard Baxter published one of four volumes of Practical Works titled 'Ethics'. Baxter was something of a brilliant reformed theologian. He described time as being the place where we have the opportunity to experience life. A unification of space and time such as they are each dimensions was a common social perception then, surprisingly. His brilliance pertained to practical christian concerns generally, as he was cast out of the church along with other independent minded churchmen by the Cromwell administration and he did not have much of a library to take about the countryside with him. I have made a few comments about chapter none of 'Ethics' as they concern contemporary states of affairs generally.

Concerning Chapter 9: Directions for the Government of the Tongue

Baxter cites psalm 7-4 "our lips are own own, who is lord over us" as an example of those that regard words and thoughts as trivial and of little consideration, who then use language inconsiderably. The raving broadcast media is exemplary in that regard with demotic slurring and morphing of words often to confuse truth with falsehood. If words and thoughts were indeed of such trivial concern it would be a different world than it is.

I think that the basic casualty of slop-talk by the media is the civilian properties of rights and democracy. With mass confusion political power becomes concentrated and is regarded as a lighthouse in the fog. Voters may elect prominent objects that appear through the fog for a time yet never organize or think for themselves. In the collective broadcast news media class creative social destruction enables the concentration of wealth and plutocratic imperialism globally. Media slop-talk runs roughshod over individualism and individual (bright) political ideas such as ecological economic development.

Words and language are in a sense mankind's best attribute; they express intelligent thought and content of the mind. Words can be used to praise the glory of God, and they can also be used to debase the soul and create envy and strife.

The Holy Spirit is a remarkable concept to regard. God as a spirit; the primary spirit is of course known to humanity as three persons, and we are saved through the Son, yet the Father is too spirit, as is the Son who took on flesh...

Spirit that can create or phenomenalize matter and energy in space-time is concerned that humanity (so far as I know) advance to intelligent thought cognizant of spirit. Falling back into creatureliness and a troubled sleep as existential clumps of mass without regard to godliness, rational governance of mind or having a right relationship to the Spirit (Father) through the Son with the help of the Holy Spirit is a prevailing malady for much of society. One can hear in the mass broadcast media archetypes of the social collective ungodliness that is like Platonic language forms from a broadcast media realm of word forms manifested in ordinary imitation as little particular forms by the masses in ordinary intra-social speech. When the government itself corrupts the tongue and works evil, when sin has itself taken over governance of social discourse, it is not good.

The tongue may be used directly for sin, such as with blasphemy, false doctrine (that probably includes pre-tribulationism and dispensationalism), ridiculing godliness, lying, forbidding preaching of the word, boasting, talking about common things too much in a holy setting, tempting to sin, carnal handling of holy things, traducing superiors (this does not include truthful and objective evaluation of and participation in peer proceedings of democracy or of those appointed to serve the public in office who fail to execute their tasks competently and honestly, or to publish opinion about public policy, international relations, environment and of the conduct of those in office, and of those concerned with creating public problems of commensurate scale. In fact for Christians to fail to speak their opinion about public issues in a democracy when they know the facts about an issue accurately, and to allow wrong policy to proceed with maladministration and maladministrators is a kind of sin of omission by the citizen to fail to perform his or her civic or ecclesiastical duty.)