War abroad will always mean war waged against the population at home. Contrary to the rhetoric of someone like Biden or the pipe dreams of the Libertarians, we are headed toward a period of authoritarian rule and where it's absent - there will be chaos. Either option represents a form of dystopia. It's inescapable.
What's the answer to all of this? I don't pretend to know. I do find it ridiculous that such heavy regulation is being implemented in certain sectors of society while we are still surrounded by middle class mega-consumers. There's no answer to this either as the US economy would collapse without them. But on a daily basis I see and encounter lone people living in huge over-heated houses with more stuff than they know what to do with, consuming and wasting, even while some of them feign a concern for all things green and recycled. It's an absurd spectacle. The answer to this would be to regulate and restrict either square footage or usage. And yet that kind of authoritarian and potentially draconian control is something no one wants – including me.
And yet I have to believe it's coming at some point. And then you have someone like me who lives in an old dilapidated farmhouse that we keep rather chilly in the winter and yet we're likely to be targeted for our lack of insulation, and our old wavy glass single pane windows. Factoring in my young adult kids, we have multiple cars parked in our grass-grown gravel driveway, not because we want them per se, but because you cannot live in a rural area like this without one. And with so many businesses and stores collapsing, it's reaching the point that even a simple shopping trip for some necessities becomes a day-trip expedition to a city.
What's the answer to all this? I honestly don't know and in fact I don't believe there is a solution. This is a present evil age under judgment and what that means at this time is not clear.
Returning to the likes of Tony Blair and William Hague, as said, they are evil men to be sure, but in many cases it's not deliberate from the onset, but a functional result driven by processes and in some cases self-deception. This doesn't mean their plans are any less evil but it needs to be understood that though these men are evil (we needn't shy away from such language) their motivations are not deliberately malicious – malicious though they be. What's the point in acknowledging this? It's not to let them off the hook but to understand they're not sitting in a dark Globalist castle in the Swiss Alps rubbing hands together while laughing wickedly like a cartoonish James Bond villain. Evil in real life is more complicated and yet at the same time there is undoubtedly a demonic element and dimension to what they're doing. But even this overlaps and interacts with the fact that the powers that be are ordained by God – and that's declarative, not a selective truth that we only acknowledge if we happen to like who is in power.
These realities need to be acknowledged in order to combat the kind of hype and hysteria put out by John Birch-QAnon types that work people into an irrational frenzy and does not lend to understanding or wisdom and thus a right response, but to rashness and foolish action driven by rage and fear.
And yet at the same time we face an unhappy reality – reject these authoritarian directives and suffer a price for doing so. There is no peace to be found in this age. This isn't our home. Again, a right understanding will lead us to conclude that it's not our place and indeed folly to invest ourselves in these societies and put our hopes in them. Financial investment in the end can be little more than a trap as like Lot's wife, we can't let it go.
And so returning to the questions of identification cards, should we reject the biometric variety on the basis of it being the Mark and in submitting to it, I'll go to hell? No, as previously said it's so much bigger than that. But this is a clear and almost unambiguous example. It is a Mark of the Beast to be sure, but not THE Mark of the Beast which is broader and has already been embraced by the majority of the Christian community.
I reject it on the basis that as the gospel is being outlawed and criminalized, Christians (in keeping with historical patterns) will be forced into underground. I believe if faithful, we should already be living in a soft-underground – a kind of marginalized second class citizenship.
I do draw lines but it's complicated all the more as this is manifest in different ways in different historical contexts. Apart from the simple identification card, there are larger questions regarding the mark-mechanism that have to be considered in our present context.
For example the Smartphone –for some a great blessing and resource, a means to access the wider world, banking and so forth, and to communicate with loved ones. But it is also a multi-faceted trap and is quickly becoming a leash or chain, a means of corporate and state manipulation and a passport to societal access. It is being required for more and more basic functions and occupations. I continue to refuse this technology on a moral basis and I say that realizing that I am part of tiny minority.
Another way the Bestial system operates is in terms of middle class values and assumptions. This includes everything from a focus on credit scores – needed to finance basic things like a car but also can affect access to housing and utilities. And this scoring system is increasingly being combined with user data to build a kind of profile or dossier on all of us. Cumulatively these forces are starting to play out and are in the process of becoming a kind of social credit score. In addition to everything being tracked, we now have to factor in things like facial recognition and artificial intelligence. As I've said for years the groundwork is being laid for an authoritarian dystopia that is but one 9/11 away.
For me, biometric identification cards represent a step too far and the costs of non-conformity may be terrible in the coming years and decades. Refusal might mean not being able to drive, get a credit card, find employment, or rent a house. I more or less expect that and I know that at that point there will be resistance – perhaps even violence. I won't be part of it but I won't cry if the state implodes either.
Biometric ID cards are dehumanizing, and represent the commodification of human beings. It's an expression of bestial control, a surrender of autonomy – not in libertarian terms (which just adds a layer of muddle and confusion to the discussion) but in spiritual terms. It's about idolatry. People laugh today but an older generation didn't like getting their picture taken because they were afraid it would steal their soul. That's not true of course – but the argument is not without some merit. I don't refer to an actual metaphysical confiscation or something on that order, but rather the idea that you surrender your person.
Libertarians idolize the self, the individual and his power (expressed in terms of rights and mammon) and thus the implied violence associated with it – gun culture. That's not what I'm referring to when I express concerns regarding autonomy.
I'm speaking in terms of the soul, and questions of obligation, veneration, forced values and compromises, a state-directed epistemology, ethics and even metaphysics and eschatology – what is effectively a religion. Men with the Mark of the Beast in Revelation 13 and 16 are spoken of in terms of worshipping his image. This can easily be clothed in a Christian veneer and we've seen it throughout history and right up to the present. And as suggested after 2001, this same Bestial apparatus was for a time and in the context of an Evangelical president embraced and promoted by much of the Church. In some respects it's far more dangerous because the same Babel-ish false religion, with its false epistemology and ethics were clothed and blended with Christian language and imagery.
The new humanistic-materialist model is not. Ultimately it's the same Babel-Beast but the lines should be more clear to Christians. But because of all the confused and divided loyalties, obligations and assumptions, we often find the response to be as bad as the disease. Taking up arms to defend the pseudo-Christian Beast in order to fight the humanistic one is no solution – and ironically is a point (or warning) hinted at in Revelation 13. Revelation makes it clear in chapters 11 and 13 that the Church will for all intents and purposes be overcome and will seemingly be eradicated – not actually, for there will always be a remnant. The saints are patient and in the fashion of Romans 12 leave the vengeance to the Lord.
Once again this is in keeping with a pattern seen in Church History especially in the Middle Ages, and in portions of Enlightenment Europe. But in all these cases such a reality is not permanent or absolute.
And frankly these categories such as the soul, values, and veneration mentioned above (and the casting of them in religious terms) will not resonate with many (and even many in the Church) because most of the public has willingly given up these concepts and the related questions in order to access the pseudo-society of cyberspace. And let's not pretend, even we use it – you're reading this online and I'm posting it, but contrary to the perceptions of many, these exchanges do not constitute a true community.
It may sound like in some respects I'm downplaying these developments. to others that I'm over-reacting. No, there's a dynamic that requires discernment and I frequently consider the following angles:
Beasts operate in cycles, even internal cycles. They are sometimes more and sometimes less bestial we might say. There are things that may be permissible and of utility at one point in time that need to be dropped later. Once again, the Fundamentalist checklist approach to such issues is poor guidance. Wisdom is required.
Will there be an ultimate Beast and Anti-Christ (par excellence) episode? It's quite possible. A case can be made for it. The only reason I hesitate is I don't believe we need to set aside the notion of imminence with regard to the Second Coming. The conditions have been met. I am uncomfortable suggesting as many do that it 'cannot' happen until x,y, and z take place. Perhaps there will be a time in which we say 'this must be it', but then - how many have said that throughout history?
I will say this - and this is the reason for writing this essay. I do believe that if there is a final superlative expression of the Beast and Antichrist, then either it's coming and soon or there is likely going to be a long delay. If things continue as they are, there's going to be a global conflagration in the not-too-distant future. It could be a generation away but things cannot go on as they are. If this happens, the world that will emerge will be very different and I think will in some respects resemble something of the dystopian. Whether that's something like Blade Runner, Elysium, Mad Max, 1984, or The Road - I cannot say. It has been and will be like the book of Revelation. Of that I am certain.