who is trying to close your church?
The creatures from the dark lagoon want to close your church, not their church, just your church.
Babylon is fallen-that great city is fallen! She has become a home for demons. She is a hideout for every foul spirit, a hideout for foul vulture and every foul and dreadful animal. For all the nations have fallen because of the wine of her passionate immorality. The kings of the world have committed adultery with her. Revelation 17:2,3 NLT.
Californians recently said they like life in Babylon. We are partial to the hanging gardens and all the free stuff. You can steal what you want from a store and if it isn’t valued over 999.00, that is ok, have a nice day. Over 60% of we residents of this dystopian paradise decided not to replace our fearless leader, Gavin “French Laundry” Newsom. Oh yes, Talk Show Host Larry Elder had “His Governess” worried. Elder was smarter than many gave him credit for, most of his campaign ads were compliments of Relief Factor. I would personally like to thank Relief Factor that my hands do not ache as I type this sentence. They paid Elder to drive a shiny new speed boat through the beautiful waters of LA. One wonders where he found clear blue waters around here. It seems that soaring gas prices, housing costs and taxes along with the homeless tent cities, the smell of urine, the reduction of police, the decline of law and order, and sharp increase in the murder rate have not been enough to tap down the serenity of the satisfied. The middle class is disappearing, what it means to be a citizen is eroding, and two million people voted with their feet last year and moved out of the state. The victorious suave Governor declared, “ I’ve been right all along and this proves it.”
With such a confident mandate, what might we Cali types want to vote on next? Life in the golden state could be reengineered and we could take the next step in the evolutionary progression. The satisfaction and confidence the Governor now feels encourages taking even more ground from the regressive people and policies that are stunting the growth of our state.
We are the home of the most censorious and powerful media companies in the world. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and throw in Apple just for fun, they belong to us, and even better, they are progressive. Who needs the police when these powerful companies have become the government’s own Ministry of Truth? They do the Government’s dirty unconstitutional work for them. Think how much better life in Babylon could be if they take down the crown jewel of free speech? If they could own, control, and censor the one voice, the institution that stands alone, protected by the First Amendment along with free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom to address grievances with the Government. Yes you guessed it, the church, the last free people on earth. The church’s meetings are protected, and what is said there is protected. Many believe if somehow they could be silenced, life would be so much better. Because they are the real problem, they hold to a world-view that is diametrically opposed to the goals in Babylon. They believe God created the heavens and the earth, he started it all, and he will end it all. His justice is perfect and one day he will decide everything in full. Christians believe that God visited the earth fully in Jesus Christ, that Christ took the punishment for what is wrong with the world and the humans in it. He took it upon himself and now has provided a way out, a new life, and a hope for the future. Much of this can be tolerated by the skeptics because it is all theory, out there, doesn’t touch the ground, and can’t be proven or disproven in the here and now.
But then there are some stuff they believe that really gets under the utopian skin and slows progress down.
Such things as life begins at conception and that all innocent life is sacred and needs protection. It is really aggravating that digitally enhanced images of live fetuses can be seen in the first several weeks of pregnancy. Biblicist Christians believe that all sexual practices outside the covenant of marriage is sinful and wrong. Because this includes same sex marriage, and various other gender combos, it is regressive and damaging to the human race. Translated this means people can’t turn it everyway but loose sexually and expect to be taken seriously.
I belong to that breed of Californians that have lived here a very long time and have no plans to leave, our lives are here. Daniel never left Babylon, many of us will never leave this dystopia We did see during the pandemic a move by governing authorities to control the church. To be fair, this was not noticeable at all prior to the Covid19. I don’t believe the leaders so feckless that they were spending a lot of time plotting to take over the church when the church was doing such a good job of making itself weaker and less relevant. I can’t prove it, but I know it is true that if they could close us, they would. There are so many examples of utopian idealism becoming tyrannical in history that it would be naïve to believe anything else. Most of us in the church would like to be left alone to live and make our own decisions. Knowing that the IRS wants to hire 80,000 new agents to comb through our bank accounts, does not bring comfort to the masses. I’m not sure there is enough loose change in American’s offering plates to buy off the feckless politicians who would like to close the churches.
Which Churches would they close?
I don’t think they would close or even want to close all churches. They would want to keep their churches open, you know, the ones who are no threat to their political power. First of all, who are “they?” The ruling class, the cognitive elite, the political and cultural leaders who live in their illusionary bubbles. The keepers of power who like sharks that once have the taste of blood in their mouths, want more power. They will corrupt themselves and sacrifice their principles of liberty and the first amendment to censor speech and punish every form of communication that threatens their power. Their primary illusion is that human beings would improve if they lived in an advanced society where everyone was equal. Equality of course isn’t free. It costs a society a lot to even everything and everyone out. But they don’t believe it anyway, they have abandoned the equal value of each person because it is a biblical value and the bible has been largely rejected. That is the product of the bible and western civilization. That is a theological or philosophical doctrine. If you reject the message of the bible, then you lose that premise. Reality is inconvenient because it proves that people are not equal in performance. In value, yes, if you adhere to the biblical notion that “All people are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable right.” That declaration of independence is about the value of the individual, each person’s worth and dignity. Of course this right does not extend to the millions of unborn children that have been slaughtered on the godless altar of choice. Equality isn’t free because people are not equal in ability, strength, character, opportunity and in many other ways. It costs society to attempt what is now called equity. I always thought equity was what built up in an investment. But I have been schooled by the philosophical left to understand that equity means equal results. It means reengineering society through mandatory governmental action to force equity on a society. Since humans won’t put up with this tripe, they must be punished and forced into conformity. The utopian dream is to punish merit, ingenuity, creativity, imagination, hard work, by taxing and taking wealth from those who have earned it and giving it to those who have not. Therefore, the utopian dream is that everyone can be adequate, mediocre and live a tolerable life in a high rise condo where you don’t control the temperature gage in your own unit. It is Governed by someone who knows what temperature is best for you and it is controlled by a bureaucrat [French for a person seated at a desk] with his name written on his shirt who lives in the basement of your building. This is the dream, have you ever seen a zombie movie?, then you get the picture.
The kind of church they want open are those who separate truth into two categories. First there is Objective truth based on facts, science, and reason. This is knowledge for the public square and for public life. The church has volunteered to remove itself from this realm via the separation of church and state. This of course is a false separation, but one that keeps the church at bay and removes any claim it might have on spiritually having an impact on public policy and systemic change in society. The second kind of truth is personal and subjective that is based on religion, faith, and mystery. This is permitted in polite society if it stays in its personal conduct lane. A church then should help make better people who in turn, once in a while, might influence a public person to make a better choice. If a church concentrates on saving eternal souls and not challenge the political order, it is safe in the arms of the state. The church in the first to third centuries refused such protection and underwent ten significant persecutions over that period. They believed in one truth that touched and ruled every part of life, both secular and sacred. The church that they want closed is like the earliest version of church which refused to allow itself to be marginalized in its beliefs. Lesslie Newbigin “ But for the modern church to accept this status is to do exactly what the early church refused to do and what the Bible forbids us to do. It is , in effect, to deny the kingship of Christ over all of life-public and private. It is to deny that Christ is simply, finally, the truth by which all other claims to truth are to be tested. It is to abandon its calling. [1]
The church that they want closed will not behave itself, it will speak out of turn and its disciples will step into the fray and announce that Christ is God in person, he is the truth, and the spiritual truth he brings to the world in his incarnate self is the truth that rules all of humanity. It rules the sacred space and it rules the secular space. Only in Christ do you get an coherent explanation of what life is for, what his creation and his creatures are for-why this all exists, where it is going and how it will end. And finally, who will bring judgement, and what forgiveness, restoration, and final perfection will be like. It is beyond utopian dreams, beyond idealism, it something rather than nothing. It is a kingdom and Jesus is the King.
It is this church that will create and cultivate disciples that could hold a disintegrating world together. The church cannot wash its hands of the responsibility to step into public life where it will be fought against, demonized, and threatened. The church steps forward when it must protect their children from the destructive teachings of Critical Theory, of false history that teaches the young to hate their country and people of other races-and of course for people of advantage to loathe themselves and the country that has created their advantage. The cognitive elite power brokers don’t want to be challenged by a biblical morality, they want the church to hand out hot towels and warm blankets, and an extra bag of canned goods. That is why everyone loves the Salvation Army but hates the Evangelicals. The Evangelicals will provide the food, the housing, the help after hurricanes, they are good for all that, but they will tell you the truth, at least they should. But they don’t stop there, they also will argue with you about a whole range of moral and political issues. There is no way to avoid this that is in any way in the Christian tradition or supported by the bible. So many who want the church to get out of the way is because they have converted to politics as their religion. They don’t mind your religion until it infringes and opposes their religion. Then like the barbarians in medieval times, they will take battleaxes to you.
Tyrants don’t close churches because the churches comply. They go after those who don’t! Jesus didn’t go looking for a fight, but he always seemed to find one wherever he went. As his disciples, we should expect the same.
[1] Foolishness to the Greeks, Lesslie Newbigin. Page 101, 1986, Eerdmans Grand Rapids