I think it is becoming evident that the traditional conception of 'a Christian Life' - which was essentially about obedience to God's commandments - has become inadequate. Has become, indeed, harmful: evil.
For me, this has been brought to the fore by the fact of so many active, devout and observant Christians joining (showing all appearance of enthusiasm) with the demonically-evil Global Establishment core strategies of birdemic-peck healthism, CO2-climatism, and the leftism of antiracism and sexual revolution.
Since early 2020 there has been an unprecedented collapse of all the major Christian churches partly imposed, but willingly embraced and even amplified by the church leadership (I hesitate to call them 'priests' or 'pastors') - and blandly accepted by most of the laity.
Yet the colossal scale of this church collapse seems apparently to have passed unnoticed, is barely discussed, strenuously denied.
I interpret this as solid evidence that the 'model' of traditional Christianity, the model of what constituted a good church, a good Christian - was profoundly inadequate, fundamentally mistaken.
Because we have on the one hand Satan triumphant, blatant, obvious... The establishment of a global, a totalitarian 'world order' that is busily engaged in wholesale, accelerating, multi-pronged spiritual corruption; via all forms of social organization and institution...
And on the other hand, not just a comprehensive failure to discern this massive fact; but many positive attitudes and acts of support for this strategic worldwide scheme of damnation.
In other words, it is clearly possible, indeed easy, for someone to be a dedicated traditional Christian - an active church-goer, whose life is in accordance with the rules of living: one who studies and knows scripture, knows theology, spends significant time in in earnest prayer, meets with other Christians to study scripture and edifying books, does good works etc etc...
All this and more; and yet to fail the biggest and simplest task of of spiritual discernment - and thus to become an agent of totalitarian evil, a dupe of the devil.
In other words, as of 2021 it has become commonplace for 'exemplary Christians' not merely to comply with the demands of evil; but to join the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world.
This proves, to my satisfaction, that the traditional concept of 'being a Christian' is fatally inadequate; and that something more and/or different is necessary as a matter of extreme and personal urgency.
The simultaneous and overall failure of so many different denominations and types of Christianity is evidence that they all lacked what was necessary - and doubling down on old notions, or adding more to the list of externally imposed practices and rituals, will be useless or counterproductive.
What then - in general terms - should Christians do, how should Christians aim to live, in the world of 2021?
The answer would appear to be related to the concept of 'creation', active and chosen personal human creative activity: so long as 'creativity' be properly understood.
As Francis Berger has recently described well: each Man's role as a Christian here-and-now (however different it may have been in other times and places) requires a personal commitment to think and act creatively in-harmony-with divine creation.
This is necessary because 'the world' is already and necessarily being co-created by Men - that is, we our-selves supply the concepts by which the chaotic perceptual phenomena become knowledge.
There is no knowable 'objective' world out there and independent of Man's consciousness: We are all of us, all the time, unavoidably co-making, co-creating this world.
The huge problem is that this is co-creating process is mostly unconscious, and that many Christians deny it; or even regard the idea of individual Men actively creating as pride-full, reckless; regard co-creating as arrogantly evil-motivated.
But since co-creation by Man is real and unavoidable, this leaves the field open to Satan.
Thus modern Man is continually co-creating the world while unaware or in denial of the fact; and this creative activity has therefore been increasingly hijacked by the powers of evil; such that Mankind's co-creative activity is now substantially aligned with the Satanic agenda.
I don't just mean that creative people (in the obvious domains such as visual arts, writing, music etc) are overwhelmingly working for the Satantic agenda - this is obvious enough, but merely the tip of an iceberg which extends to all of our experienced-and-known life.
The major harm - a deep, wide and pervasive corruption - is in the actual observations, experiences and understandings of the mass of Men.
Because all our knowledge is being-made, moment-by-moment, with our own creative input; and because this co-creative input of each Man is denied by most Christians and has been externally-diverted by evil powers; therefore Modern Man is living life seen through Satanic Spectacles.
Modern Man does not perceive obvious evils - because his knowledge of the world has been unconsciously formed (co-created) using externally-derived evil concepts - without his knowledge.
Modern Man adopts attitudes and performs acts that are evil - under the impression that they are good; because he is habitually making his world passively, using Satanically-inverted values.
Modern Man sees good as evil; because his systems of evaluation are constructed with concepts that he has absorbed from The World; and the institutions of The World (the whole world) have been brought into overall alignment with the vast demonic strategy.
Each Christian absolutely needs to recognize that he is co-creating The World. It is a lethal error to suppose that God's creation lies outside of himself and that a Christian needs merely to conform to that external reality.
That whole attitude is wrong.
The Christian should recognize that he personally is contributing to creating the actual world; he should strive to become conscious of his own creating; and he should make the conscious choice to align his own inevitable moment-by-moment co-creating of reality with God's primary and pre-existing creation.
The key words are 'conscious' and choose.
First we need to be aware of what is-happening; then we make our choice:
Do we choose to ally-with God's real creation, or do we choose to ally with The System?... A System which is a product of Satanic, externally-imposed, passively-absorbed, this-worldly concepts.
Consciousness and choice are things that can only be done by each person, one at a time.
They are our responsibility, mine and yours - and (as of 2021) any avoidance of this individual responsibility is a de facto decision to join with the side of evil.
But, on the plus side; if we can become aware of co-creating and make the right decision of its alliance, and keep making it; our activity of co-creating reality will 'materially-assist' God's creative plans for this world: assist God immediately and personally, but also in the long-term and generally - by divine providence - in all kinds of unpredictable and unobservable ways.
Note added: Our ongoing co-creation of this world is taken from what Owen Barfield terms "figuration", in his book Saving the Appearances - and this book (if studied with care) is highly relevant to the above argument and our current condition. However, Barfield does not make an explicit link to the spiritual war, nor to our conscious choices of co-creation/ figuration being that of picking sides in that war - consequently, the argument of StA can (misleadingly) seem rather abstract, complicated, or even 'post-modern' (in its emphasis on choice). The spiritual distinction of God or Satan is implicit in StA, but I could wish that Barfield had made this core aspect clearer and simpler.
13 comments:
Where does artistic creativity fit into this? If I create religious art (sans any institutional support obviously) am I co-creating the world through this or do you only mean influencing reality through direct thinking?
@J - The subject matter is secondary. A Christian subject matter does not make an artwork aligned with God's creativity.
But my point is much more fundamental than artistic creation - it is about co-creating the everyday world around us, as we know it - tables and chairs, trees and mountains, animals and people - everything.
The point you make bears out something I was told many years ago that outward forms of religion are good for souls on a certain level but it is now time to progress into a new and higher understanding of life. This could be interpreted (and has been) as a diabolical trick to lead one away from true religion but it is actually saying that true religion goes beyond obedience to doctrine and dogma which may be necessary but are not sufficient for it requires developing the inner connection to the Word of God as established in your own soul. This is the path whereby you cease to follow and imitate and become, as you say, a spiritual co-creator with God which is his desire for us.
"increasingly hijacked by the powers of evil" - exactly!
This is part of the key, why things keep working despite the fact that evil is destructive.
And co-creating in the face of knowing this can dishearten a Christian. "Why bring a child into this evil world to be corrupted?" Because growing up and learning to consciously choose the good is worth the risk. Exposure to potentially corrupting/hijacking evil is necessary.
Regarding the churches and the hijacked obedient, so much of it is a consequence of traditionalism, which is rooted in a desire for durable safety and predictability, which is just the opposite of what God ultimately wants to be our motivation. That way leads to death.
The time for science, which is a matter of honest observation, is past. The time for co-creating is here. We need not despair to see that 'science is dead'. It was an important training phase, but training should not go on too long, that would be failure to launch.
@William - "now time to progress into a new and higher understanding of life" - This 'romantic' idea has been argued as needful for Christianity for a long time, since the time of Blake and Novalis. But the events from 2020 have (I believe) shown, with the greatest possible starkness, the bankruptcy of externally-directed traditionalism.
@Lucinda - "traditionalism, which is rooted in a desire for durable safety and predictability" - Yes indeed. There is no 'safe' path to salvation - as I think is made clear by the reports of Jesus's teachings in the New Testament - but *so many* people want it to be a matter of ticking off a checklist or following a flow-chart.
In other words 'liberal' Christianity - and the discarding of inconvenient traditional rules - was long ago shown-up as motivated by apostasy; but the 'opposite' (Pharisaical?) idea of Christianity as *primarily* the obedient following of multiple external rules (disregarding inner spiritual motivations) has been equally shown-up as worse-than-useless, by the events of the past couple of years.
It's not that Christianity is something as insipid as a 'compromise' or 'middle way'; but rather that its motivating roots Must be within the individual human soul, and nowhere in society: neither the secular left, nor the institutional church.
Bruce, thanks for your blog. Your prose is amazingly clear and your subjects and thoughts are always relevant to the situation at hand. I also find your sense of urgency refreshing.
That out of the way, I'm going to do something rude and recommend a book and author: R A Lafferty and his novel Past Master. If you haven't read it, it's about a time traveling Thomas Moore. Moore gets sent for from the future to "save" a future society suffering from profound Spiritual Distress. I think the book grapples with what we are facing now in a prescient fashion.
And if you aren't familiar with the author, R A Lafferty was (and this is wild) an arch-conservative post-modern Catholic auto-didact white-trash Oklahoman terminal alcoholic sci-fi writer. And a genius. Read multiple languages and was incredibly well versed in esoteric lore (as in Steiner and Guenon etc etc).
Past Master is really good. And I think you'd find a lot to appreciate in it.
PS. This is more a note to you than a comment for your blog obviously. Thanks for your writings.
@S - Thanks for the compliment - but your typo confused me: You meant Thomas More (as in the Sir/ Saint). I don't suppose I shall read it, since I read very few novels, but by non-coincidence I watched the 1960s movie of A Man for all Seasons just a few days ago.
Yes. Sorry about the typo. Sir/Saint Thomas More. Henry VIII etc etc. The author of Utopia which Lafferty asserts was a satire. Perhaps the non-coincidence was synchronicity? Hah!
Sometimes you highlight music infused by Grace. I believe Elliot Randall the guitarist who played with Steely Dan on some songs is infused by Grace. This man is a bringer of Joy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKunqSLItsg
"but *so many* people want it to be a matter of ticking off a checklist or following a flow-chart."
My best guess for why this happened is the removal of death from our immediate mystical experience. From a demonic strategy, it's very hard to remove religion from people until you remove the immediate cause of most genuine religious impulse, which is the search for answers about death of loved-ones and near-death for ourselves. There is only so much the demons can do to desensitize people to death, they also have to distract and delude them. The birdemic cult has provided both distraction and delusion: "I must spend enormous time researching safe behaviour", and "I can save people by doing this checklist and getting others to do it too." Birdemic death is experienced through the cult explanation. I suppose cancer was a previous version of this situation, but it was much slower moving since cancer is not catching. But it surely was a major pusher into healthism. The causes of cancer tended to be things that were actually bad for you though. All the 'causes' with the birdemic are actually necessary for human thriving.
@Lucinda - Great comment!
I have read this post, the comments and Francis' post several times. I feel I have had a bit of an epiphany and I am missing the whole picture. When you speak of co-creating, would you include the aspects of how each person creates/improves the own little world each day by their actions? Raising good children, a kindness to a stranger or offering courtesy to rudeness? There is more on the tip of my tongue, I am just not articulating it well.
Thanks for any replies.
Drew
@Drew - maybe it would help if you did word searches on this blog concerning a line of thinking relating to 'Final Participation', 'direct knowing, 'heart thinking' and 'intuition' (specifically the intuition posts over the past five years).
This is a theme I got and modified from William Arkle, Owen Barfield and some of Rudolf Steiner.
The thing about co-creating is that one knows it not by the content by the provenance - where thinking comes from, i.e. the real self (the soul).
When one is thinking from the real self, it is experienced very differently than from the surface (and externally influenced) personality. This can be recognised consciously, and we can choose to give it primacy.
In fact, it is not enough for this to happen unconsciously and passively - modern Man's task is to become conscious of these matters, and to make conscious choices in line with God's creating.
Our real self is divine and eternal, and is what is in contact with the Holy Ghost. It is the real self which is able to learn from experiences in this mortal life, and carry through this learning to resurrected eternal life.
It might be asked how we can distinguish the real thing from wishful thinking? I have found that wishful thinking does not work, it falls to pieces on contact with life - but the real thing give courage and warms the heart.
This 'testing' of the validity of our thinking goes by cycles and happens quite naturally - so long as we take these matters seriously, living-by our intuitions etc; and maintaining awareness of what is happening in our lives in consequence.
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