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Life ideologies in Ecclesiates-II

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By Pr Isaiah White

In the July Edition of Good News, we looked at the first three ways life is looked at in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature. That means it is about the practical way of understanding life and also living in this sinful world.

This book explores the meaning of our meaningless life and how we can go about it as believers. Here are the last three ways:

Chauvinism
“ While I was still searching but not finding, I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all” (Ecclesiastes 7:28).

With uprightness, it could only be a man and not a woman.

The world looks at life through the lens of gender. The scope of the meaning of chauvinism is from a legend that suggests that there was a man named Nicolas Chauvin of Rochefort, who fought by the side of Napoleon and exhibited excessive and aggressive patriotism.

The term gradually evolved broader to mean ‘excessive or prejudiced support for one’s cause, group, or sex’.

As a characteristic of language, the word narrowed to mean a man who believes that men are superior to women.
Some of us have probably heard of terms like ‘a male chauvinist pig’.

It appears the speaker in Ecclesiastes is not a chauvinist in just the narrow sense, but also the broader sense of life.

Life is appreciated through the lens of group, class, gender, among others.

Life is life under uniforms and it is not fulfilled in diversities. His perspective of an ideal life is that of where women are not recognised.

There are people in this world whose perspective of life is exclusive patriotism.

It is a life of boundaries and borders, where living a meaningful is tied to the gender, social status, tribe, and race of those around you.

Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature about practical way of understanding life. (Photo/Hope Church Toronto West)

Cynicism
“So don’t be too good or too wise! Why destroy yourself?” (Ecclesiastes 7:16 ). Life under this ‘ism’ is not inquisitive but skeptical.

It is a life that confirms what is good, establishes that it is wisdom, but still casts a doubt. It is a doubt and an unbelief perspective of life.

Long before Jesus came, the stoics lived a life not of just questioning but doubt.

Doubting even what has been by all standards approved as good and right.

We can understand life of a cynic through the words of Lisa Firestone, PhD: “Cynicism is part of a defensive posture we take to protect ourselves.

It is typically triggered when we feel hurt by or angry at something, and instead of dealing with those emotions directly, we allow them to fester and skew our outlook.

When we grow cynical toward one thing in our lives, we may slowly start to turn on everything.

Many of our cynical emotions arise when we are feeling vulnerable.

In moments when we are feeling open and are let down, we are far more likely to react by toughening up and becoming defensive.

Heightened susceptibility to cynicism can be a sure sign that we are turned on ourselves.

When we enter this state of mind, we are often viewing those around us through the same critical filter through which we see ourselves.”

Cynicism is not suspecting a known evil person doing good, but rather it is doubting a known good person doing good, because at one point in life what was good had a wrong ending.

Many people today are stoics and live cynical life. Many today know and understand God is good, but still don’t place their faith in Him.

Pessimism
The term Pessimism is a combination of two Latin words: pessimus, which can be translated as ‘very bad’, and the suffix -ism, which is equivalent to ‘conduct’.

It is the propensity to judge things by their most unfavourable or negative aspects.

This concept is the opposite of optimism, which consists of analysing situations from a more favourable dimension.

Pessimism differs from cynicism in this sense: the latter suspects its credible establishment, while the former anticipates the worst in every situation.

The preacher rounds-up life to be meaningless. He mentions this 38 times throughout the 12 chapters.

This is the human view of life and we now remain responsible to identify a counter view in the same book.

The question we are to continue asking is: does God see life on Earth as we see it?

Does He appreciate it in these “isms” as most of us do?

As Christians, we are called to look at life through the lens of faith in God, not through these unfortunate views.

The writer is a life coach and pastor.
Contact: +256 775 822 833
whitemwine@gmail.com

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