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"Anomie"

May 9, 2022

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Over the last two years, while watching or reading the news, we've often said, "Covid brought out the crazy in everybody." The Atlantic ran a story recently on this very phenomenon. Olga Khazan wrote that "the turn-of-the-20th-century scholar Émile Durkheim called this dysfunction ‘Anomie,' or a lack of social norms that leads to lawlessness." She also said, "We are moral beings to the extent that we are social beings." The article concluded that we have stopped being social in the past two years. And, in many cases, we have also stopped being moral.

God created us to be in community with others. In the second chapter of the Bible, He says, "It's not good for the man to be alone," so He created a companion - the first woman, Eve. The night before His crucifixion, Christ prayed these words, "The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. So they'll be as unified and together as we are— I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness." Paul describes the church as a body that "isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning perfectly together."

The Bible provides a cure for the "Anomie" that Khazan wrote about: "You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness" Ephesians 4:4-6.

We need one another to be all that God wants us to be. Let's skip the crazy and be a part of His family, permeated with Oneness!

Because He Lives, 
Tricia Whitaker


Connect with us for prayer or encouragement by sending an email to firstword@thefirstacademy.org


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