"All Christianity concentrates on the man at the crossroads" G.K. Chesteron

In his book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton explains the difference between Eastern philosophy/religion and Western philosophy/Christianity by focusing on fatalism versus free will.  To those who believe in pantheism ("all is God") or panentheism ("all is in God"), "existence is a science or a plan, which must end up a certain way." (p. 128)  After all, without separation between God and man, what use is there in trying to change anything, what hope is there in reform?  Thus the Buddhist ends up denying existence and seeking to extinguish it rather than trying to change it.  Christianity (and by with it Western philosophy) views life differently, "to a Christian existence is a story, which may end up in any way."  Thus the focus upon the crossroads, it matters a great deal which road a man takes in life because God has created man to have life and being of his own, to be able to choose to not do what God wants, and to be able to choose to love God.  Without freewill, and you can't have freewill without a transcendent (separate) God, what's the purpose of anyone's life?
This may seem like an area of interest only to philosophy or comparative religion students, but in reality, our attitudes about our place in this world and our relation to God have profound effects upon how seriously we take our personal responsibility for the choices we make.  With every horrific act of violence reported on TV due to the latest shooting or suicide bombing, people want more and more to believe that evil is something abnormal in the human brain.  It is only the "crazy" people who do such things we tell ourselves as we search for what went wrong in someone's life to turn them into such a madman.  Evil is choice, the vast majority of evil in our world is the result of the mundane choices to choose evil or good on the part of ordinary people.
Christianity offers an alternative road.  Jesus stands at the crossroad, holding up a sign that says, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)  Will people pass him by, laughing at the guy who hasn't realized yet that life is meaningless?  Will they stop, look to Jesus, and allow him to lead them down a new path?  It makes all the difference in the world which path we take.  You see, "all of Christianity concentrates on the man at the crossroads."

Do we love the world or hate the world?

There is a tension that exists within the Christian mindset concerning our view of the world that we live in.  On the one hand, we believe that God is an awesome creator, that our world and this universe is marvelous in its wonder and beauty, and that his creation of humanity in his own image is a crowning achievement which gives each person on the planet a worth beyond reckoning.  On the other hand, we believe that our world is fallen, in slavery to sin and subject to a curse because of human rebellion against God.  Are we supposed to love the world, because God created it, or hate the world, because humanity ruined it?  The answer is not the either/or that some sadly choose and thus warp their understanding, but the more delicate to hold, both/and.  We must both love the world and everyone in it, and hate the sinfulness and depravity with which our eyes are bombarded each day.
In his book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton wrote, "what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it...We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening." (p. 63)
If you don't love the world, and each person living within in it, you will never understand the mind of God.  If God did not love this world, he would not have sent his one and only Son to die in order to redeem it (John 3:16).
If you don't hate this world, and each act of violence, lust, and selfishness, you will never understand the mind of God.  If God did not hate this world, he would not have flooded it in the days of Noah, nor would he have sent his Law to be a guide or his prophets to warn of the coming judgment.
God loves this world, and hopes to see each and every one of us return home in repentance to his loving embrace.  At the same time, God hates this world, as any parent would hate to see his own children hurting each other.
The tension that exists within the Christian mind about loving and hating the world is supposed to be there.  It isn't a fluke, or a mistake to be corrected, rather it is a reflection of the mind of God who loved this world so much that he was unable to sit idly by and ignore its injustice any longer.

A vote in favor of monogamy

Who is it that understands the value of sex?  Is it the man or woman, committed in the bonds of marriage to only each other, or is it the modern sex addict, indulging anywhere with anyone or anything?
In his book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton explains the simple reason why the murmurs against monogamy from a hundred years ago had no appeal to him, "I could never mix in the common murmur of that rising generation against monogamy, because no restriction on sex seemed so odd and unexpected as sex itself...Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing one woman.  To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once  It was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one is talking.  It showed, not an exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it." (p. 48)
There is no way that Chesterton could have envisioned the wholesale swallowing up of modern culture to sexuality, but his observation that it is the monogamist that truly understands and values sex is all the more true in our culture which so very much devalues it.  What value is there in something that is not worth holding on to?  How can anyone say that a one night stand has any real meaning or purpose when the very name of the person with whom such intimacy has been shared is quickly forgotten?
There may be some who are reading this who think that I just don't understand the pleasure to be had in having sex with many women.  They're right, I don't understand it, nor do I want that type of "knowledge".  What I do know is the absolute value of the sexuality expressed between a husband and his wife.  I don't need to experience any lesser imitations to know the treasure that I already have in being bound by sacred oath to my wife.  I value sex far too highly to ever desecrate this gift by sharing it with another.  I only have two parents, they are amazing, what need have I for more?  I only have one nation, America is my home, what need have I for another?  I only have one faith, Jesus Christ is my salvation, what need have I to be saved by any other?  I only have one wife, what could possibly be gained by desiring sex with any other?
All such bargains that promise joy and pleasure beyond that which we have a right are hollow lies.  Those who partake of them will only learn, to their regret, when it is too late.
Sex is a Siren's Song in America.  It promises a veritable buffet of pleasure, only to dash us upon the rocks of venereal disease, unwanted pregnancies, broken hearts, exploitation, and violence.  Men, do yourself a tremendous service, find one woman, marry her, and learn what the real value of sex is.

Avoiding a "softening of the brain"

In his book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton has a quote that I thought worth sharing, "Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot.  Every man who will not have a softening of the heart must at last have a softening of the brain."  (p. 34)  At that point he was referring to the willingness of Nietzsche, and countless others like him since, to doubt everything.  Yet those who doubt everything in the end doubt themselves.  On what basis can you doubt everything?  There must be some standard, some truth, that is beyond doubt or all expressions of doubt become meaningless.  "By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything." (p. 34)  In the same way, those who say that all paths are true are equally stuck in a quagmire.  If every path is equally valid, how can any choice be made?  If no outcome is more desirable than any other, what is the point of choosing at all?  Thus the rebel who rejects everything, and the man of tolerance who accepts everything find themselves sitting at the same crossroad.  Chesterton pictured Nietzsche and Tolstoy sitting there together, our world today isn't short of others willing to join them.  "They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads.  The result is - well, some things are not hard to calculate.  They stand at the crossroads." (p. 34-35)
It is amazing that in 1908 Chesterton clearly saw that these two forces in philosophy/morality/government were on a collision course that would leave both without anything meaningful left to say.  In the last hundred years his prediction has certainly proven true.  Today our world is convulsed by rebels who hate everything and everyone and idealists who profess to love everything and everyone.  In the end neither of them is leaving that crossroad.

Virtue run amok

G.K. Chesterton wrote his explanation of why he believed in Christianity, Orthodoxy, in 1908.  He wrote at the dawn of the Modern Age that we know live in, prior to WWI, when electricity, the automobile, and radio were on the horizon.  In the last one hundred and five years some things have changed a great deal, one observation of his in particular about virtue and vice has only grown more true with the passage of time.
"The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good.  It is full of wild and wasted virtues...The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad.  The virtues are mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone." (Orthodoxy, p. 22)  By this Chesterton meant that Truth, Justice, Mercy, Love, etc. are still valued in our society, but out of proportion with each other, and in grotesque ways that ultimately lead to evil instead of good precisely because they have become detached from their framework within the Christian faith.  Those who value Truth above all else think nothing of persecuting those with whom they disagree.  Those who trumpet Mercy do so by declaring and end to judgment; rather than learn what true mercy means, they simply deny any absolute sense of right and wrong.  The examples could go on and on, but the most disturbing of all virtues run amok is Love.  Our society is drunk on the idea of Love, but the love we now worship is a self-centered, pleasure seeking charlatan, it cares not for those who do not love it back and resembles not at all the Love of God shown at Calvary.
Chesterton's observation about the virtue of humility is particularly poignant, and worth quoting, "Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of the appetite of man...But what we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.  Modesty has been removed from the organ of ambition.  Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be.  A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed." (p. 23-24)  This is the Post-Modern world we find ourselves living in.  Everyone is full to overflowing with self-confidence, but scared to death to say that one thing is right and another is wrong.  The result is an ever more pathetic arrogance about one's own place in this world, and an ever shrinking ability to define one's purpose in this world.  It is any wonder that people grow weary of the bluster and long for some sense of Truth to comfort their souls?  Is it any wonder that far too many young people around the world have embraced fanaticism in the vain hope that the brutal certainty of a violent claim to truth will make up for their own feelings of uncertainty?
The world may not look much like it did one hundred years ago, but the mind of man hasn't changed all that much.  Would that we might once again embrace the mind of Christ and put an end to all of this virtue run amok.