Right in the middle of that valley, where there was this abundance of water and pasture land,

was a fully modernized city.

He didn't ask questions like, where were my family live?

Where will they go to church?

Where were my children be educated?

The shortest critique on record of pragmatism was uttered by Jesus of Nazareth.

When he made the statement, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses

his own soul?

At that point we see Christ walking on a collision course with contemporary value systems. Pragmatism has a tendency to move in the direction of dealing with issues in terms of

immediacies. Short-term goals. Here's where we see the conflict. The Christian philosophy,

the Christian life and worldview, is saying that quite often the

short-term solution is ultimately destructive. One of my favorite illustrations, it's the Old

Testament situation that emerged between Abraham and his nephew loved. Remember when Abraham came out of Er, the Caldeas,

and answered the call of God to go to a strange and foreign land, comes out with his family,

brings Lott, and he are very much busily engaged in the business of cattle ranching.

And they come and they settle down together and they both are very wealthy men.

Their cows are prospering.

But pretty soon, the cowboys that are working for Abraham start fighting with the cowboys

that work with Lott.

And they're fighting over water rights and over fences and over pasture lands and they're getting

their brands mixed up, you know, and Abraham's holding his foreman in charge mixed up you know and abraham's holding his

foreman in charge of so many cows and lots holding his foreman in charge and the guys are stealing

...