Do not misunderstand. I have depths of compassion and empathy for the condition of young people. I do not envy them the world they were birthed into and are growing up in.

But let’s cut the dung, shall we? Enough with the mental illness, the worldly philosophies and attributes placed as the causes of all that is transpiring among today’s young people. What we have is a crisis, a major crisis as never seen before in history of SPIRITUAL illness. A couple of generations are now left to their own devices, the belief system that existed for millennia around the world, and since the foundation of America in America being tossed aside. Replaced with paganism, relativism, and the removal of, or the attempted removal of guilt, shame, accountability, and the mention of sin and judgment. The removal of God and Christ. The perversion of the Word of God.

All things everywhere — schools, the workplace, government, churches, and every aspect and institution being made DEVOID of any teaching, belief, mention [unless to discredit and work to remove or corrupt] in the ways and Word of God. The most important foundation in human existence has been chipped away at and eroded for decades in the West. This can be tracked to its origins.

Look around. What family? What family life and foundations are being instilled in people today? For the past 50 years or so? The family has been under attack and one of the primary targets of Satan and the hordes of those that ARE darkness to undermine, corrupt, and destroy.

And the Evil One and all those in bondage to him have run a very successful battle plan. They have been winning the spiritual war mightily with regard to destroying the family.

Imagine if you will, every part, every aspect and institution within the escalating spiritual war like a major city, a strategic position to either hold or conquer in this spiritual war.

The traditional family was one of the greatest shining examples, a fortress, a most important strategic city to engage in battle and continue in battle until that mighty city fell to the evil conquerors that know nothing but death and destruction. Sadly the residents in the City known as Family did not resist the Enemy. They readily and easily surrendered. Most of the residents of the City of Family even to aid and abet the Enemy!

The same applies to the church. Every one of them.

The same applies to every government office and agency.

The same applies to the workplace. There is room in the workplace for the ways and practices of God and the Bible contrary to the lies people have been indoctrinated with.

The same applies to schools at every level.

And we the people permitted this takeover, this death, and destruction. Deluded and ignorant in believing the lies the Enemy constantly, cunningly, seductively spews.

Add to this bitter equation the fact the overwhelming majority of so-called adults act like ignorant selfish children, totally self-obsessed, self-indulgent, refusing to ever come close to the Truth and loving the lies and the liars who have brought this all about, and what does anyone expect?

To now we’re at the point where a few people after allowing things to get to this degree are finally saying, “How’d this happen? How’d we get here!?”

Ahh, darkness!

Where is the light to push this darkness out? To expose it? Why so silent ye lights that are supposed to be like those of a city on a hill! Not hidden under some basket or your busy personal life!

Oh, it’s mental all right. Oh, it’s emotional all right. But first, it begins as a SPIRITUAL matter. And not the world’s idea of being spiritual, thus pagan and an enemy of God’s, but the spiritual teachings, practices, beliefs, and ways of living according to God, according to the Word of God! It begins from the earliest age. It begins in the home. It begins in the church. It begins in the school.

And anyone needs to ask how, why what is happening is happening? Really folks?

Do I really need to put this here yet another time!? Really?

Forget the social scientists, the philosophers, forget all the dung being fed to everyone — EVEN BY PROFESSED CHRISTIANS, see below as an example — what is required is to STOP FORGETTING ABOUT GOD, JESUS, THE HOLY SPIRIT, and the HOLY BIBLE!

Ken Pullen

Tuesday, April 26th, 2022

ACP — A Crooked Path

Teen Sadness and the Crisis of Meaning (Audio)

Our real cultural crisis is a catastrophic, culture-wide loss of meaning. Philosophers warned it was coming, as did social scientists, and now we are living with the existential results of a culture untethered from God

04/24/2022

By John Stonestreet & Kasey Leander

Reprinted from BREAKPOINT

America’s teens are not all right. As Derek Thompson recently wrote in an Atlantic article entitled “Why American Teens are So Sad,”  

From 2009-2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent. [This] is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded. [Almost] every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it’s happening all across the country. 

What Thompson is describing goes far beyond typical adolescent angst. In fact, according to the National Institute of Health, other risky behaviors traditionally chalked up to adolescence—such as drinking and driving, fighting at school, and even underage sex—are significantly down. Nor can these declines in mental health be blamed on the pandemic or lockdowns. Rather, these were “pre-existing conditions” that, though certainly aggravated, were not caused by the social chaos of the last two years.  

Thompson suggests four converging cultural realities that are contributing to this crisis: social media, social isolation, the extra-stressful global situation, and today’s parenting styles. 

Over a decade ago, psychologist Jean Twenge warned about the effect of smartphones on teenage brains. Since then, the prevalence of social media has unleashed new levels of comparison, exposure, and image problems on a demographic already wired to care too much about what their peers think. Instagram’s own research found that while a third of teenage girls say the app “makes them feel worse,” they cannot keep from logging on.  

Even so, writes Thompson,  

the biggest problem with social media might be not social media itself, but rather the activities that it replaces. [Compared] with their counterparts in the 2000s, today’s teens are less likely to go out with their friends, get their driver’s license, or play youth sports.  

And, of course, it also matters what teens are encountering on the screens that are such a big part of their lives. Even more than TV or print media, phones bombard teens with 24/7 coverage of the world’s problems, creating a near-constant sense of fear and foreboding. These days, teens deal with more than just the stress of preparing for college. Alone in their rooms, they are worrying about the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and whether they have been sufficiently “woke” on various issues.  

In response to all of the social chaos, many parents are choosing what Thompson calls an “accommodative” parenting style. It is very tempting for parents, instead of letting teens experience life’s normal bumps and bruises, to insulate them: “If a girl is afraid of dogs, an ‘accommodation’ would be keeping her away from every friend’s house with a dog, or if a boy won’t eat vegetables, feeding him nothing but turkey loaf for four years” (which, he points out, is a true story). 

That strategy, sometimes called “lawnmower parenting,” ultimately backfires. When every challenge on the path is mowed down, a child struggles to develop the resiliency necessary to confront the inevitable obstacles ahead. In the end, a world cannot be prepared for a child. A child needs to be prepared for the world.  

Every factor that Thompson identifies certainly contributes to the current mental health crisis among teens. However, there is more to consider. 

In his book, The Content Trap, Bharat Anand tells the story of the 1988 Yellowstone fire, infamously started by a single unextinguished cigarette. But Anand asks a critical question: Why that cigarette? After all, hundreds of cigarettes are dropped in Yellowstone every year. What was different this time? 

The answer, he argues, is not found by focusing on the spark—but the environmental factors that turned Yellowstone into a tinderbox. The extremely dry summer of 1988, the driest on record, combined with the park’s controlled burn policy meant, as one former park superintendent put it, “We were a perfect setup to burn.” 

Social media, parenting strategies, and world events are definite sparks for a mental health crisis (as are others such as the breakdown of the family and increased availability of substances to abuse), but it’s the prevalent cultural worldview that makes devastating cultural wildfires inevitable.  

Our real cultural crisis is a catastrophic, culture-wide loss of meaning. Philosophers warned it was coming, as did social scientists, and now we are living with the existential results of a culture untethered from God, and therefore untethered from any fixed reference point for truth, morality, identity, and meaning. It is a tinderbox in which any spark, whether social media or addiction or lockdowns or something else, is destined to explode.  

It is also a tinderbox primed for a different kind of spark, one which can point people again to the God Who infused His world with meaning. This spark is Christ-changed people, shaped by redemption, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and armed with the truth and love about life, the world, and what it all means.