The age of the Great Apostasy - a rapid, wholesale and self-imposed abandonment of Church Christianity worldwide - has-happened; and the results are currently working-through the lives of every remaining serious and real Christian.
The astonishing and unprecedented global spiritual catastrophe of 2020 has been ignored by the Christian churches as much as by the masses everywhere; yet it marks - or should mark - a decisive change in what it means to be a Christian.
The lesson of 2020 is that All the different Christian denominations failed to discern the world-wide imposition of a totalitarian (that is, necessarily evil) system of governance; and by failing to discern and reject this reality; the Christian Churches joined-themselves with that demonically-led agenda for the corruption and damnation of Men.
In a nutshell; 2020 was a decisive battle in the spiritual war of this world; and All the major Christian churches failed to recognize that there was a battle, and thereby surrendered (without fighting) to the powers of evil; and therefore now serve those evil powers.
It seems that All of the major Christian churches (those large churches - with numbers, power, wealth, influence etc) have joined with one or more of the core agenda-drivers of evil: the birdemic-peck, climate-change, antiracism, sexual revolution, socialism generally... And adopting even just one of these goals is evidently sufficient to tie an institution to the agenda of evil; and ensure its incremental corruption unto complete obedience.
So individual real Christians have been witness to The Great Apostasy - a truly colossal and world-wide, all-denominational abandonment of Christianity, by far the largest set-back of Christianity in two millennia; yet so deep in corruption are the mass of church-dominated self-identified Christians that they have not even noticed!
What I find striking is that all the different types of Church Christianity have collapsed - and that none of the principles have sufficed to prevent this.
The Roman Catholic Church - with its emphasis on priestly authority and the sacraments, its tradition of rigorous theology - especially the Mass; immediately aligned with the evil agenda at the top level and has consolidated this, incrementally and bureaucratically.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, with its emphasis on tradition, the Church Fathers, asceticism and a life permeated by ritual - likewise took the side of the world government; and willingly closed itself down at their pleasure.
The 'Bible-based' Protestant Churches; who take Scripture as their primary guide to personal conscience - all suddenly found that Scripture was telling them to comply with any and all dictates of secular government and the media; including dictates that put (their definitions of...) health as the primary human value (transcending any and all spiritual considerations).
Likewise the Mormon (CJCLDS) Church (a large but mostly 'amateur' institution, with very few full-time pastors; that had developed a membership with high personal standards of obedience to commandments and rigorous adherence to strict rules of living); this very-different Christian church, with its very different theology, nonetheless behaved exactly like the traditional-orthodox Christian institutions in 2020; willingly shut its chapels and temples, and explicitly embraced and expounded the new totalitarianism that made primary the principles of 'health' and antiracism.
(I realize that there have been individual, personal exceptions who recognized what was happening and continue to fight the spiritual war - and that the exceptions, like the rules, are cross-denominational; coming from many of the variants of Christianity. But not from those already 'liberal' - hence converged - churches. The 'liberal Christians' enthusiastically embraced 2020 evil almost to a Man; having already embraced the principles which justified this evil. And I recognize that a more substantial minority of lower level, non-leadership, lay church members of all denominations have remained faithful to Jesus Christ. But the above point remains. There surely has been an unmistakable abandonment of Christianity of a world-historical scale and suddenness - and made all the worse for being invisible, denied or unacknowledged.)
I could go on - but the fact that the leadership class of four such distinct denominations/ churches, each with such extremely different ideas of 'the Christian life', and each with a very different core and focus to that life; all apostatized almost simultaneously and very completely.
And this apostasy went beyond mere obedience to a power that was regarded as overwhelming; because there is in these churches an official and enthusiastic embrace of the secular, materialist and anti-Christian principles of the New World Order. In these churches the fluctuating dictates of an evil-motivated totalitarianism have all been made - somehow - a Christian duty!
The rulers and officials of these churches do not merely comply with the secular-Left rules; additionally they praise and celebrate the motivations of the secular-Left rules, and the primacy of living by secular-Left rules - and conversely suppress and discipline those who dissent and push-back against the new regime.
The first step is to acknowledge what has already happened; the second step it is try and understand its implications; only at the third step can people decide what to do about it.
This is something that - surely? - all Christians need to do, and ought to be-doing?
And that fact that they are neither being led nor encouraged to do this; is itself a factor in understanding the present situation of a real Christian who finds-himself in a world where (almost certainly) 'his' church has become an apologist for evil; has enthusiastically joined with the legions of Satan.
What specifically to do about it will - probably - vary according to the Christian's denominational and church background.
But in the mean time, all real Christians who have taken the side of God, divine creation and Jesus Christ as against The World; can be united in their recognition of the reality of The Great Apostasy - of this catastrophic loss in the spiritual war of this world.
All Christians can be joined by their realistic recognition of what has (already) happened, and by their discernment that it has been a great evil.
I think this has-created a genuine (and new) sense of fellowship among many very-different types of Christians; who might, until recently, instead have regarded each other primarily as heretics and threats. Now, they instead see - first and foremost - comrades in the spiritual war.
So, in deciding what best to do, starting from here - there will surely be many and distinct ideas among the many types of real Christians; because none of us know what is The Best counter-revolutionary strategy; and the best answer may well differ in different parts of the world, and among different individuals each with an unique context.
But it is possible, and desirable, that those minority of real Christians who remain Christian after this Great Apostasy, may achieve an unprecedented alliance.
Because the two sides in the spiritual war have since 2020 become clear and distinct. It is now very obvious who is fighting on our side; and who is not.
And the opposed sides of Good and evil do not, it turns-out, map onto specific Christian denominations or churches.
13 comments:
Bruce,
Brilliant. A great summation of the state of our world.
Merry Christmas and God Bless,
John
Thanks John!
As often, that great alliance of The Inklings can be an example to us - creatively and in a friendly collaboration including Tolkien and Havard the Roman Catholics, Jack and Warnie Lewis the mainline Protestant Anglicans, Charles Williams the High Anglo-Catholic (and ritual magician), and Owen Barfield the Anthroposophist.
Great post and agree, but would like to offer this question: If the Great Commission is to spread the Gospel - the reason, the central mission of Christianity, can we evaluate these denominations and their actions against that? Did they still preach and teach, albiet virtually, or with masks on etc? In some way, that is a "redline" litmus test i think too...wondering your thoughts on that?
@AC - The GC (as it is usually interpreted) does not strike me as a litmus test. Evangelicals (with decades track record of active evangelical activity) have been among the keenest to shut down their churches; and prohibit real human contact, gathering - even for prayer.
The idea that live-streamed services and 'zoom' meetings represent a viable alternative pursuit of the Great Commission is just a joke.
Meanwhile, these 'evangelicals' (and Mormons, who were once even more evangelical than evangelicals) supported a regime of everybody being completely isolated for months (deprived of visits from their 'pastors', even allowed to die without personal spiritual support); interacting only electronically - later they agreed to more months of sitting, masked and spaced-out; not singing, not conversing, not sharing communion or any refreshment... Many resisted the removal of these restrictions...
No, whatever such people claim about the importance of the GC (words are easy), their attitudes, statements and behaviours show whom they truly serve - and it is not God.
@bruce - thanks, i suppose that's true enough. I wonder if the immediate urge to knuckle under is that Christians are no longer able to countenance civil disobedience, or paying a price to gather/preach and practice.
Interesting! I wonder if there are denominational differences in propensity of congregants to follow secular authorities. i.e. Unitarians more likely to fall in line than say Pentecostals. While formal institutions go along, some likely have more members who say nah and others are totally conforming.
Joseph A. has left a comment on your post:
I'll risk being repetitive here. Of course, this shows a failure of discernment, but your apostasy language is too much. You expect Christians to know immediately when something wicked this way comes . . . but most people in most situations need time to process things.
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Anyway, it takes people time to think through the existential calculus of life. Sometimes, of course, evil is obvious -- killing babies, torturing puppies, putting pickle on bananas . . . Often, though, it's stealthy, and the sheep don't catch wind of the wolf until the wolf meanders around a bit. And so we finally started to see resistance -- religious and political -- by the summer of 2020. There were evidently many, many people who thought things may have smellt a bit lupy earlier -- but they weren't sure -- and they kept the matter to themselves. Eventually, though, they began to speak out. And so the reaction continues to this day -- as the demonic psych-ops. continues to unravel for more and more people.
Expecting an immediate reaction strikes me a weird modern expectation -- needing everything NOW, this instant. Most people are concerned with other matters -- they're not social critics or philosophers. Think back to various heretical movements/moments in history. The Church did not always immediately know when a belief was a "foreign body" until it had witnessed its effects and studied it a bit. Your timescale is unreasonable.
The great apostasy has been going on for some time -- and it certainly has accelerated over the past 200 years. It's more fruitful, in my mind, to look at what went wrong in the last two years -- and how to change it.
Your thinking and critique of bureaucracy is certainly useful here. In many Christian groups, the leadership class (bishops for most of us) have been infected by the managerial spirit. Most bishops have clearly acted more like bureaucratic handlers than shepherds of a flock. It's not surprising to see the problem has been graver for the more centralized and finely tuned bureaucracies. Rome is, of course, the extreme case here. We (Orthodox) had more luck -- and more sensible bishops -- because we're far less regimented and bureaucratically managed.
The long liberal peace (in the West) has also clearly dulled Christians' sensitivity about state encroachment and the danger of anti-Christian political persecution. You'd think that the Germans, at least, would be mindful of that -- but they seem to remember no good lessons from the last century.
It is turning around, though.
There are individual congregations that have remained faithful to Christianity. Probably more than you think. It is not just a few individuals who have resisted.
@JA - I regard things as almost exactly the opposite from what you do.
When evil is obvious, discernment is immediate and unthinking; at least in those on the side of Good.
Rather than slowly evaluating and 'thinking through', those who got it wrong have doubled-down; overwhelmingly they just got used to believing today's lies and forgetting yesterdays (and last week's/ month's year's). Starting with false assumptions, all that has happened has just been fitted into those assumptions - whatever happens, everything is interpreted as confirming the original assumptions - to an extent which is beyond exaggeration or parody.
It used to be obvious to the meanest intelligence, that a liar cannot be trusted and is evil (*at least* until he repents) - yet the mass of modern Men trust and believe gross and habitual systematic liars, and disregard their own personal experience.
But not to notice the sheer extremity of what has happened since 2020, as if it was the kind of thing that might not be noticed... this is exactly what I mean by gross failure of discernment to the extent that such a person must be on the wrong side (whatever they think about themselves). And since they do not realise they are serving the devil, but imagine themselves to be on the side of God and The Good - their corruption will continue unresisted.
While there are quantitative differences between denominations, I disagree that the Orthodox in general have made correct discernment and spoken out.
But rather than getting involved in micro-wrangling, the clear facts are blazingly obvious - all Christian churches are officially and by their leadership consensus on the side of evil; and/but all (non-liberal) churches have contributed *some* examples of inspiring and courageous real Christian witness that we have heard over the past 18 months. The exact proportion of such good examples per unit population of denomination is not worth discussing; since the qualitative picture is identical and the situation continues to change.
The situation is not 'turning around', and it would be catastrophic to suppose that it is. If it ever does turn-around, there will be no doubt about the fact, since it would be regarded as an absolute and (for several generations) unprecedented catastrophe by the world government and their national branches, mass media, large corporations - and all major institutions (including churches).
If there is a significant Christian revival (which is the *only* positive change that matters - any-thing else being merely politics as usual), and if this revival begins to turn-back the tide of apostasy and embraced evil - this will be a global upheaval beyond anything in 2020, comparable to (and perhaps triggering) another physical world war to add to the spiritual war - but this time a war of the demonic rulers against the masses, but especially the Christians.
In a real sense this third world war began in early 2020 - with the Establishment putting the whole world (except themselves) in a prison, socially isolated and subjected to relented PSYOPS. But if/ when They sense that the tide has turned and they are losing, then (probably) the gloves will come off, with a frenzy of sheer spiteful destruction (including self-destruction).
It is, indeed, fear of this happening which keeps so many people obedient to the Establishment.
@Alan - Yes, I said that - and these are the basis of the future. But the fact of individual congregations holding-out does not *refute* the scale and significance of the Great Apostasy; in truth, this is exactly what what explicitly confirms the GA. How else by by faithful congregations (as well as individuals) could we know it had happened?
I think it's really hard in the West for most to see what was happening right in the beginning because so many of them support abortion. Even in the churches. Maybe there was a time when we didn't understand the developmental stages in the womb but we do now so you can't pretend it's not life and just the fact that we've moved from something that should have been "rare" to something women celebrate on tictok shows you how evil it really is. If you can't recognize the evil of abortion, you can't recognize evil and then you are susceptible to more evil. And then you're just twisting in the dark whirlpool, the more evil you can't see, the more evil you blindly accept
I agree that there is a Great Apostasy. Individuals can still find salvation through the biblical message and through the remnant of still-faithful churches and teachers, but the overall situation is a catastrophe, as you say.
Yes.
"And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
It is ironic that it is only a faithful few, warming their hands at our Lord's camp fire, who have eyes to see all around us the enormity of the catastrophe that Matthew Arnold foretold and despaired at when those who, in our own time, followed him in apostasy and despair (pretty much everyone) are completely blind to it.
I happen to belong to a small church that never missed a Lord's Day. But that was due solely to the faith and character of the top man and not to any denominational stand. We have truly been sifted like wheat. Previous generations had the comfort of making their pilgrimage in large companies. We must walk alone or in small isolated bands.
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