11 February 2014

The Baptism of Self-Indulgence (2/2)

But think of the Church as the Covenant Community out in the world. It is Judgment when lost people have a stronger moral compass concerning the plight of the poor. It is Judgment when the lost are more indignant and morally outraged about  the rape and pillage of the world that feeds our society's consumer appetites.

It is Judgment when lost people who have suppressed the knowledge of God are better able to see the propaganda and manipulation of our consumer system and the values it teaches.

Our society has been brought under Judgment on many levels. Morally it has been inverted and embraced that which is against nature. The Image of God is destroyed and people behave quite literally as sub-humans.

But it is also Judgment against the Church, when these same God-haters possess a moral compass that points accusation and denunciation at a system that combines Corporate Greed with International Military Power. And rather than denounce it and expose it, the Church baptizes it and celebrates it...even in the worship of God.

It's as if the Gentiles are behaving more like Jews in some ways.

And that same inverted morality has long been at work in the Church. This cannot be reduced to homosexuality. That's simply the last phase of a deep cancer which has been at work in society. And since the Church largely follows and endorses society, the cancer is no less present in the Church. There's more to Romans 1 than homosexuality. And people wonder why that too is invading the Church?

Some might say it starts when Christians embrace feminism and divorce. Fair enough, but as the culture changed and women went out into the workforce, the economic dynamic changed. At first those with working wives had more money and then later as the economy adjusted many wives worked just to help their families get by.

And this was the point the Church sold out. Rather than be morally right and poor as a consequence, the Church embraced the expected standard of living. Blinded by greed and consumer manipulation, our culture's sanctification of covetousness, families were destroyed, selfishness reigned and divorce became a normal part of American Church life. We had to remain relevant, and in the process became assimilated and destroyed our testimony to a dying world.

It also starts with morally weak parents who have followed the lies of the world and raised their children to be beasts. They have loved themselves more than their children or the truth. Rather than do what's right, they want to feel good about themselves, have their children love them and never have to feel 'bad' about saying 'no'. Then when their children err, they defend them. When their children do evil deeds, they make excuses for them. Then when their children embrace sin and decadence, they blame it on others. Then when their adult children despise them, they are puzzled and defeated. But when the Church (which basically functions as business) is confronted with this, the last thing it wants to do is drive away customers. After all they're paying the bills.

You really see it in small towns. One person engages in sin, but the Church leaders know if they address it and put the unrepentant person out, they'll lose extended families and groups of friends. An incident like that could almost destroy a congregation. The truth is that those who love that unrepentant family member more than the truth are enemies of Christ.

So rather than do what is right, everyone turns a blind eye and makes excuses. These things become normalized. The only sin is to challenge the social status quo. We think we're challenging it when we complain about the culture, but all too often we're wrangling over symptoms. Our leaders should help us dig down to causes and foundations. But that's one thing they won't do. If people start to really think, that will lead to trouble. I'm generalizing, but this is the rule more than the exception.

In all things the Church just follows the world.

We (the Church) have erected social power-theologies that embrace and endorse our immoral system. The Church looks like a lamb but is speaking with the voice of dragon and teaching its people to worship and support a very powerful manifestation of the Beast... a self-deifying Imperial Power and the culture it has created.

Our worship of money, which is really just a tool of power has led us to contort our values about marriage, family, the raising of children, and time itself. We've eagerly supported an economic system and attitude that have contributed to the destruction of the family and society. We mock societies that value time and experience while we measure our value and success in terms of acquisition. Italian families take siesta, French families vacation, we buy Cadillac's and worthless junk we've produced from theft and slave labour. We're the moral ones.

And then we're led by fools who think they stand for the family, focus on its flourishing and yet do everything in their power to support social, economic and cultural values which destroy the family.

I shake my head at the irony. It's akin to seeing the American flag flying over Wal-mart. Wal-mart is perhaps the most destructive, subversive, anti-social, anti-family organization that has ever existed. And yet how many have been brainwashed to think it stands for truth, justice and the American way? Well, at least they say 'Merry Christmas' right?

And yet for all this, our so-called leaders believe that if we can just get people to 'vote their values' that somehow this will clean up the system. If we can just get the right people into office who will provide moral (???) leadership, then our society can become stronger, more stable and God honouring.

These people are delusional. I have to believe they are but children when it comes to their understanding of the world. They profess to be wise counselors, discerners and cultural commentators but seem to lack even a basic understanding of how the fallen world functions.

The tools they offer are not to the tools that build Zion. They are the building blocks for the Tower of Babel.

Judgment has come on the Church because she has gone whoring after the Beast and all its offers of power. Christ rejected Satan's offer to rule the world, but His followers have sold themselves into bondage and joined with the Deceiver. Together they have built a masterpiece. I cannot imagine a more clever but ultimately deceptive system that baptizes evil and teaches the doctrines of hell from the pulpits and airwaves that claim to speak for Christ.

What will it take for the Church to wake up and be stirred? The false leaders are doing all they can to stir the people sitting in the pews. But they are leading from the dark into greater darkness... in the end to violence and further strife.

I tremble and weep when I think of the state of things and what is to come. I weep not for the Babylon of America. Those come and go. I weep for the Church, for many will fall in the coming days and great evils will be perpetrated in the name of our Lord Christ.