In the first place, there is a profound asymmetry about Good versus evil policies: it is much more difficult to accomplish Good policies. This because Good is attempting to build in harmony with divine creation; while evil is against divine creation, and any form of subversion, damage or inversion of creation counts as evil.
It is hard to build and maintain any functional entity - but trivially easy to destroy functionality; very difficult to be an engineer, very easy to throw sand into functional machinery.
Evil policies can therefore be of many, many kinds. They are almost-never upfront evil; almost always the evil is disguised but overwhelmingly dominant.
Evil policy can have surfaces or mixtures of upfront 'good intentions' masking underlying covert evil; can be short-termist Good locally - but evil over times and more widely; and evil policies may be Good--tending in some material sense, but actually being-done for evil motivations (and encouraging evil motivations) such that evil is what will eventuate.
This is why it is so difficult actually to do good through politics - because the System is so thoroughly corrupted.
For instance; in 2016 the English people made some attempt to do Good by voting overwhelmingly for Brexit; but the political process was utterly negated and dissipated by the hostile System; so that after years of fudge and under-the-table wrecking, the result was 'Brexit in name only' with near-zero perceptible change and absolutely zero detectable benefit.
When it comes to Christian morality, it is simple foolishness to suppose that The System will reintroduce Christian values, and will enforce them. The System is anti-Christian root and branch; and White Christians are the only wholly reviled scapegoat social grouping.
When any superficially pro-Christian policy appears to emanate from The Establishment; we should be confident that it is In Fact intended to harm Christians; and that the System itself will ensure that this is what happens.
Since this is a negative goal, there are innumerable ways in which The System can attain its destructive objectives - far too many ways to be detected and defeated by excluded and disempowered Christians.
Therefore, if Christians want to do Good, it must originate and be done outside The System, and Not reliant upon the support and cooperation of The System.
Anything that comes From the System will be hostile by intent, and in its implementation.
The evil of The System absolutely needs to be recognized by Christians; or else we will stupidly continue to collude in our own destruction - as has been happening for decades and continues to accelerate.
This latest Current Thing is apparently specifically designed to draw in Christians, so I find it heartening to see how many are refusing to rise to the bait.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's support the System and we'll throw you a few scraps though they will turn out not even to be scraps. As long as people don't recognise the supernatural evil behind the whole thing they will delude themselves that it is somehow reformable or in some way means well. The reality is that it is rotten to the core and if those drawn to it aren't corrupt to begin with they will be soon be corrupted.
ReplyDelete@Wm - As I said on Frank's blog; I strongly suspect this issue has been chosen to make Christians even less popular - maybe even as a flash-point for violence - because it is a distinctively-Christian moral issue that will be *perceived* by the secular majority as an alien rule coercively imposed by a small, entitled (evil) minority.
ReplyDelete@William - It is very obvious that the System is dominated by the literal powers of evil; but apparently this stark reality is 'too simplistic' for many Christians to recognize and believe. They are constantly 'giving the benefit of the "doubt"' to particular politicians, officials and the mass media; and trying to divide the Establishment System into Goodies and baddies, so they can support the Goodies by 'politics as usual' - when there are really only degrees of baddies to choose-from.
There isn't even anyone in public discourse who *claims* to be motivated *primarily* by Christian values - yet somehow these are assumed to be implicit.
Of course, when somebody somewhere does thus claim - he will probably be The Antichrist!
Thanks for this, Bruce. Your insights add some much needed depth to the concerns I expressed.
ReplyDeleteThis issue is distinctively-Christian. As such, Christians probably will become the negative focal point if this latest bit of communication/manipulation has any legs.
A commenter on my blog noted that this could have some connection to the peck. Take away body/choice defense and you take away any chance to defend against the peck. It's a good observation. I admit that I had thought about that as well, but bodily autonomy as a defense meant nothing when it came to the peck, so I don't know.
Whatever the case, Christians really do need to stop treating the blatantly anti-Christian System as something that does/may/could do good things for Christians. It's far too late in the game to be that trusting and misguided.
The way I believe these things work is that the System will present a way for Christians to do something good, but which will be manipulated by the System to have a harmful effect in some way.
ReplyDeleteOr the System will present a way for Christians to be villains in their script. While it's true that Christians will be attacked however they go against the agenda, the System will try to convince Christians to step into a role in a predetermined process.
If the judges indeed decided to overturn the previous ruling, then the best thing for them would be to simply stand their ground and refuse to respond to any provocation. Don't be the villains in their script just do what you were already going to do.
What ordinary people should do is a different matter, but certainly trying to act through rigged System channels is not a good idea.
Frank, I think it's connected not only to the peck but to the latest developments in the sexual revolution and to 1/6. After constantly pushing the message that bodily autonomy is meaningless, that there's no such thing as a woman, and that protesting against the government is insurrection -- we now have the same people encouraging violent protest in the name of a woman's right to choose! The irony is too heavy-handed to be unintentional, and I think the purpose is to underscore that there are no rules, that only power matters.
ReplyDelete@NLR - "While it's true that Christians will be attacked however they go against the agenda, the System will try to convince Christians to step into a role in a predetermined process."
ReplyDeleteYes, that's it I think - or, at least, it's Plan A. Plan B is usually 'more chaos'.
@Wm - The Left is incoherent, as is evil generally; or rather, its coherence is oppositional. That's why it is an error to try and extract principles - or a master ideas such as 'equality' from what the Left wants.
Of course, the inability of the masses even to notice incoherence (let alone object to it) is a fatal problem - which was probably necessary before evil could achieve the world domination it now 'enjoys'. Thus you get the crudest and most rigid biological determinism asserted to underlie the trans phenomenon; alongside rhetoric of absolute 'freedom' and fluidity of choice wrt invented/ imagined sexual identities. And both are believed.