Showing posts with label persecution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label persecution. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Thursday, May 07, 2020
Monday, April 27, 2020
ET religion
This post will be speculative.
1. Confirmed military footage of UFOs heightens longstanding questions about the status of UFOs:
2. On the one hand it's odd that the Pentagon would confirm the existence of military technology superior to our own. That's an admission that we're vulnerable to military conquest. Some regime or entity has technology that could defeat us. Render us defenseless. Perhaps it's not specifically military technology, but it seems to have a military application that could neutralize our own technology.
3. This also raises the source. Is it terrestrial or extraterrestrial? Naturalistic or supernatural/paranormal?
Is it terrestrial technology produced by another country or corporation? If so, you'd expect the Pentagon to know the identity.
4. Obama let our national security assets slide. He allowed Chinese agents to hack American assets with impunity. He redirected NASA to focus on global warming. He tried to sabotage Israeli national security while enabling Iran to develop nuclear weapons. So it's possible that we're behind.
5. There are now corporations richer than many countries that might have the R&D resources to develop next-generation military technology, either independently or in collaboration with a nation state
6. Another naturalistic explanation, albeit more farfetched, is intervention from ETs. A stock objection to ETs is that the distance is prohibitive. But perhaps 20C physics is mistaken about the cosmic speed limit.
Yet from what I've read, even if superliminal travel as possible, that results in backward time travel. A traveler moving faster than light is moving into the past. Assuming that's correct, it's unclear how ETs could get here that way.
7. Another issue is that if these are ETs, why are they so elusive? If they wish to conceal their existence from humans, their behavior is very careless. But if they wish for us to be aware of their existence, why is the evidence so ambiguous? Why not make their existence unmistakable?
8. There's nothing in Christian theology that rules out the existence of ETs. The question would be the confusing and disruptive impact that would have on human history and religion. But arguably, that's not different in principle from demonic interference.
9. Human technology is getting out of control, with experiments in animal/human and machine/human hybrids, as well as general eugenics and genetic reengineering.
10. In theory, there are supernatural/paranormal ways to simulate advanced technology. Agents with telepathic powers could make humans hallucinate anything. Simulate convincing illusions.
However, that wouldn't explain photographic evidence inasmuch as cameras can't hallucinate. On the other hand, the UFOs seem to leave no physical trace evidence. No permanent after-effects. So in that respect it's spectral. Rather like ectoplasm, that materializes and dematerializes.
11. Another supernatural/paranormal explanation would be psychokinesis. The ability of certain minds to directly generate or manipulate states of matter and energy to create objective physical phenomena. If, say, the source was ETs, they wouldn't have to be here to do that. They could be living millions of light years away. The effects we witness on earth would be the mental projections of their psychokinetic abilities. Mental action at a distance.
12. Mind you, assuming that some agents have psychokinetic abilities, they don't have to be ETs. That might include angels, demons, psychic living human beings, human beings in league with demons, or damned human souls.
13. There's also the question of whether the hypothetical ETs are benevolent or malevolent. If malevolent, they'd have the power to conquer and subjugate the human race, although they might introduce themselves as beneficent saviors of humanity. It's easy to imagine an ET religion that becomes the dominant religion, co-opting historical religions. In terms of biblical eschatology, that would be consistent with Mt 24:24 (2 Thes 2:9; Rev 13:13-14).
14. The evidence for Christianity is copious, diverse, ancient, and modern. But it might be necessary for God and his agents to intervene to counteract their influence. If this represents an invasion force, we're no match for it, but God's agents could keep it in check.
15. Thus far, the current pandemic doesn't seem to pose a threat to the survival of the human race. The larger threat is coming from public officials and Big Tech who use the crisis as a pretext to abrogate civil liberties and instigate a global depression. Will we end up with a worldwide Venezuela? Global social unrest would be an opportunity for the powerbrokers to take over.
16. We also see the suppression of Christianity under the guise to combatting the pandemic. Not only is public worship illegal, but depending on how long the lockdowns and mass house arrest continue, many churches will never reopen because they went broke.
The discrimination extends to prosecuting churches that practice drive-in services as well as Tech Giants that block electronic services if they disapprove of the sermon content.
17. Perhaps it's just coincidental that the coronavirus, which originates in a Chinese lab, from which it "escaped," is happening at about the same time that Red China has been purging Christianity in China–with the collaboration of the Vatican, I might add.
I'm not suggesting this is a human plot. Humans aren't that smart or organized. But it could be diabolical. I don't have any firm opinion about how this episode will end. Perhaps the economy will come roaring back.
But many churches have capitulated to a very dangerous precedent. And some churches won't recover because they were unable to bring in enough revenue to cover the overhead. Pastors will have to quit the ministry and take jobs in the private sector.
Monday, March 30, 2020
Crackdown on churches and synogogues
Tampa megachurch pastor Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested for holding voluntary services and "faces a punishment of up to 60 days in jail and fines totaling up to $500." This raises an important church-state concern, as does New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's outrageous threat "to permanently close churches and synagogues [mosques?] that hold services during the coronavirus pandemic." He doesn't have the constitutional authority to "permanently close" any church, though he apparently thinks he does.
Getting an abortion is an "essential" service according to Democrat-governed areas (and the wicked NYT). In many places keeping liquor stores open is also an "essential" service. We go to grocery stories in close contact with tens or hundreds of people. If you don't touch your face with unwashed hands, you are very unlikely to get COVID-19, particularly if not standing within 3-6 feet of the same person for 15-30 minutes or more. Many church buildings have enough space to make such a seating arrangement possible.
How long should churches allow the state to close their doors? Are churches not going to meet for Easter celebration? What if the restrictions persist over many months, even over a year? In ancient Israel a disease or plague would have prompted people to hold a national convocation of repentance, not to disperse. Democrats are already inclined to act with impunity against the church, as Beto's remark about removing the tax-exempt status of any church that does not kowtow to the LGBTQ agenda. These recent events will only make matters worse, with long-term ramifications well beyond the time that it takes COVID-19 to run its course.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Friday, February 28, 2020
Chic apostates
It's striking to compare the Christians who persevere despite dispossession, imprisonment, torture, family separation, and martyrdom to chic celebrity apostates feted in social media who had all the advantages the suffering, faithful, persecuted Christians lack.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Miracles and missionaries
1. This post is occasioned by the controversy surrounding Francis Chan's recent healing claims. But that's just a launchpad to address a broader issue. I'm discussing general principles that may not apply to that particular situation.
2. I'm reading high-profile cessationists who have a new criterion for reported miracles: unless it's caught on camera, it isn't credible. With the profusion of cellphone cameras, we should demand photographic evidence for reported miracles before we lend them credence. Eyewitness testimony is inadequate.
3. I'm all for empirical verification of miracles where that's available and feasible. But to demote testimonial evidence degrades biblical miracles.
4. From what I've read, miracles are more likely to happen in a virgin mission field, to help the Christian faith get a foothold. I also think it likely that God does more for those who have less and less for those who have more. Take folk who don't have access to advanced medical care.
5. There are different kinds of missionaries and different kinds of missionary settings. In some countries, Christianity is technically legal, but in reality Christian expression is persecuted.
In some countries, Christianity is legal but conversion is illegal. By the same token, Christianity is legal in some countries but evangelization is illegal.
This creates an underground church where native Christians and Christian missionaries practice a degree of anonymity to evade detection from hostile authorities. At the risk of stating the obvious, in closed country the authorities can use cellphone camera images to identify and apprehend Christians and missionaries. Consider the use of facial recognition technology in China.
6. There are different kinds of missionaries. For instance, there are white-American missionaries who do temporary junkets to Third-World countries. They stick out compared to the native population. In addition, there are white-American missionaries who live in the host country.
Then you have minority-American missionaries of the same race/ethnicity as the host country. For some, these are temporary junkets. Others take up full-time residence.
They can pass for natives. It's easier for them to avoid detection from hostile authorities. Finally, you have native missionaries.
7. But it many cases it's necessary for the missionary, Christians on the ground, and unreached people, to maintain their anonymity. In some situations, cellphone cameras will be a deterrent to missionary activity, because it exposes the identity of the participants.
This includes prospective converts who might be open to conversion, but they're not prepared to take the risk of arrest, if their face shows up in a gov't database at a Christian gathering, and flags them to be "disappeared". So there's a disincentive to missionaries, Christians, and prospective converts blowing their cover.
I'm just stating the obvious, and I'm struck by the naïveté of some cessationist critics. There are situations where it's reasonable to request medical verification. But we must make allowance for impediments and deterrents on the ground. We need to take the setting into account, and judge reported miracles on a contextual, case-by-case basis.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
The Wonderful Visit
1. Temptation and the Fall are recurrent themes in the fiction of C. S. Lewis. Demonic temptation is a pervasive theme in The Screwtape Letters. Satanic Temptation and a Fall averted is a pervasive theme of Perelandra. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe narrates the temptation, downfall, and redemption of Edmund. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader narrates the temptation, downfall, and redemption of Eustace. In The Magicians Nephew, Lewis synchronizes creation with The fall when Jadis invades Narnia at the moment of creation. The same novel narrates the temptation of Digory in an Edenic/Hesperidian garden, only he successfully resists the temptation. For whatever reason, Lewis seems to be fascinated with these themes.
2. There's a related, potential theme in Out of the Silent Planet, only Lewis doesn't develop it in that direction. Mars underwent Satanic attack which left it physically damaged, but the three intelligent species remain unfallen. Ransom, a fallen agent, is interjected into that world. That generates contact between unfallen agents and a fallen agent. Yet Ransom, though fallen agent, is benign. He's not a malevolent agent like Jadis, or the Un-man in Perelandra.
Even so, this raises an interesting idea, although it's not developed in the novel. Although Ransom has no malicious intentions, yet because he is fallen, he can inadvertently seed the unfallen species with evil notions. He's not wicked, but he's like a soldier fresh from the war zone, where you have to watch your back all the time. The kind of precautions and suspicions necessary to survive in a fallen world are foreign to the agents of an unfallen world. Simply by talking about his own experience, by comparing and contrasting his world with the their world, he can unwittingly plant sinister ideas in their imagination that never occurred to them. Like a species with no resistance, much less immunity, to exotic diseases, a well-meaning fallen agent might infect unfallen agents. His presence could prove contagious even though he's not a tempter. That's assuming the aliens, while sinless, are not impeccable.
3. However, we can also develop the same idea in reverse: the effect of interjecting an unfallen agent into a fallen world. What would be the reaction? John Ruskin once remarked that if an angel was spotted in England, he'd be shot on sight. That prompted H. G. Wells to write The Wonderful Visit. Since Wells was an atheist, and the novel is social satire, the protagonist is not a conventional angel by orthodox standards. Rather, he represents a truly innocent, guileless being. He has no understanding of humans and they have no understanding of him. He provokes hostility by compassionate but clueless actions like freeing farm animals. Eventually, he returns to wherever he came from because his presence is intolerable.
Although that's fictional, it has realistic analogies. Take the persecution of Christians. The virtuous are hated in a world where the normal is vice. The supreme example is the homicidal hostility to Jesus. Darkness fears and despises the light.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Francis Chan at the Catholic Ecumenical Track
I watched the talk Francis Chan's recently gave to a Catholic group:
This is, of course, right on the heels of a sermon in which he was regurgitating Catholic talking-points. A few random observations:
1. Pastor Francis made a number of good observations about Christian piety, unrelated to Catholicism. He usually has some good things to say. I don't think he should be written off. We get different things from different people. He has his own niche.
2. I can't foresee the future, but I think it's unlikely that he will convert to Rome. He resists being pigeonholed. He's theologically eclectic. I think he views Catholicism as just another box. He may believe it has a few things that evangelicals can learn from or benefit from, but he doesn't strike me as the kind of person to pulls a package off the shelf and goes by that label. He's more independent. What he did in speaking to the Catholic group was more a case of retranslating their piety into his own priorities.
3. If the viewer was hoping that he'd clarify his position on Catholicism, his discussion was a disappointment. If you don't feel competent or comfortable with offering a public assessment of Catholic theology, don't accept an invitation to speak to a Catholic audience. The Catholic church is far and away the largest ostensibly Christian denomination. Many unbelievers reject Christianity because they identify Christianity with Roman Catholicism, which they think has discredited itself.
So we can't avoid evaluating what Rome has to offer. We must present constructive alternatives. Pastor Francis doesn't have to be an expert on Catholicism to have a broadly informed, considered position. A basic way to clarify your own position is to understand opposing positions. That often provides a necessary point of contrast.
6. Pastor Francis seems to think there's a generic, Christocentric piety which Catholics and evangelicals can share in common. He fails to appreciate that devout Catholics detour their pious impulses into the Rosary, eucharistic adoration, reading Catholic saints and mystics. It's going to be a distinctive Catholic-oriented piety. He failed to explain to the Catholic audience where to look for Jesus. How to cultivate fellowship with God.
7. He acts like refusing to fellowship with Catholics is tantamount to "hating" Catholics, and falls under our Lord's condemnation of those who refuse to love the brethren. But that's terribly confused.
8. He acts like you can tell who a real Christian is just by looking into their eyes. How well they emote about Jesus.
9. Pastor Francis distinguishes between Christians who are "in love with Jesus" and those who aren't. He seems to think it's possible or even necessary for a Christian to be in love with Jesus all the time, and he treats that as what demarcates true followers of Jesus from self-deluded churchgoers.
It's true that some Christians started out very zealous, but their fervor faded over time. There are different reasons for that. A superficial conversion experience. Or boredom caused by thin theology. After a while they think they've heard it all. There's nothing new or fresh. They stagnate rather than grow.
However, you also have Christians where the zeal has dried out, but the commitment remains. The juice is gone, yet they faithfully persevere. That's actually a better test of Christian fidelity than when they were motivated by gushing fervor. It's like a marriage where the passion is gone but commitment remains. The couple will see it through to the end, even if the emotional dividends are gone. Endurance is a mark of true Christian faith.
10. Pastor Francis's ideal is the persecuted church. The underground church. But there's a problem with making that the paradigm.
i) For one thing, his ideal suffers from internal tension. On the one hand he thinks persecution and suffering for the cause of Christ are what promote genuine church growth. But that model only works if Christians remain a persecuted minority. On the other hand, once church growth crosses a threshold, the church becomes worldly, losing its purity and vision.
So he doesn't seem to think the Gospel can or should spread beyond a certain point, because true Christian piety requires a dominant culture that oppresses the Christian faith and movement. He can't decide if church growth is good or bad. It's good so long as remains underground, but it can't stay underground if there are too many converts. At that point it's too big to be hidden.
ii) Apropos (i), Pastor Francis seems to define genuine faith or saving faith in terms of heroic faith. The cult of martyrdom. A martyrdom mystique. He doesn't seem to have a model for how or whether it's possible to be a Christian in ordinary times. Can a faithful Christian have a normal family life? Or must true Christians live on the lam, under constant threat from the authorities?
Has it occurred to Pastor Chan that there's a sense in which it's easier to be a martyr than a lifelong Christian? Martyrdom can be an escape from the daily demands of the Christian faith. Early release from the humdrum, the frustrations, and disappointments.
iii) He seems to lack much appreciation for the fact that God calls different Christians to different lives of service. For instance, the church needs theologians and Bible scholars. But that requires some breathing space, where Christians aren't constantly under the gun. Where they can pursue education and research, teach and write.
11. Instead of guilt-tripping Christians who don't suffer horribly for their faith, Pastor Francis should encourage them to make generous use of their blessings for the benefit of others. That's why God has given some Christians greater opportunities than others. On the one hand we need the purifying experience of the persecuted church. On the other hand, we also need the experience of believers in countries where Christianity is legal, where there's the affluence to cultivate Bible scholarship. Seminaries, Christian colleges, and Christian K-12. These two dynamics cross-pollinate.
12. Pastor Francis suffers from an occupational hazard of gifted preachers. This holds true for talented performers in general. If you're a gifted public speaker, you acquire a reputation as a gifted public speaker. That in turn can make you self-conscious because there's now an expectation to live up to. That's not confined to preachers. Great performers like Laurence Olivier, Franco Corelli, and Vladimir Horowitz developed stage fright because the expectations were so high. Will you dazzle the audience? Will you say something unforgettable every time you step stage?
One reason preachers should cultivate a text-oriented preaching style is to avoid becoming self-conscious. You stay in the text. And you bring the congregation into the text. You bring the congregation into the world of the narrative. Help them visualize what the Bible is describing, and draw analogies with their own experience. That's easier when preaching from biblical narratives, but the Bible is also chock-full of metaphors. It's good for a preacher to develop the metaphors. Draw a picture in the mind's eye of the congregation. Expand the metaphor into an extended theological parable.
If a preacher stays in the text, and draws the congregation into the text, he's less likely to think about how he's coming across. He's not thinking about himself and the image he's projecting. Rather, he's projecting the world of the text.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Vicarious martyrdom
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a revered figure for many professed Christians all across the theological spectrum. And that's merited. There is, though, the danger of self-deception in the veneration of figures like Bonhoeffer. It's chic to admire Bonhoeffer. It can become an exercise in self-flattery. If I admire a good person, that makes me good by extension.
And it can become a form of vicarious martyrdom. It takes no courage to praise his courage. We admire him at a safe distance from the mortal hazards he faced. Venerating figures like Bonhoffer becomes a cost-free substitute for taking the risks he took. It has all the advantages of martyrdom without the price-tag.
But while we admire him, would he admire us? I'm old enough to remember Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's controversial commencement address at Harvard. The western intelligentsia lionized his moral heroism. Having honored him by inviting him to deliver the commencement address at the most prestigious university in America, they expected him to honor them in return. Instead, he delivered a scorching speech about secular decadence in the west. His speech was prophetic:
In fairness, someone might say the same thing about this very post. I don't face imprisonment, torture, or execution for posting this. Point taken. I don't claim to be a hero. Posting this doesn't make me virtuous. So this is a message for me as well.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Friday, June 21, 2019
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Who is vandalizing French churches?
There's been extremely widespread vandalism of French churches in the past year or so. Who are the culprits? Who'd be motivated to vandalize French churches?
I have no inside information. I'll just offer some conjectures. Perhaps the most obvious candidates are Muslim immigrants. And just in terms of statistical probabilities, it seems likely that Muslims account for many cases of vandalism.
Over and above that group, who else is motivated to do that? Another obvious candidate might be militant atheists. To begin with, France is a largely secularized country. There's increasing intolerance towards traditional Christianity, or what atheists perceive to be Christian. Often they have no firsthand knowledge of Christianity. The Catholic church is their default symbol for Christianity. More so in a historically Catholic nation like France.
In addition, the ongoing abuse scandal has done irreparable damage to the reputation of the Catholic church. So I'm guessing, and this is just a hunch, that most of the vandalism of French churches is a combination of Muslim immigrants and militant atheists.
It would be interesting to have comparative data from other European countries–as well as Great Britain.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Political mass suicide
It's quite something to witness the current state of the culture wars. I believe it was Pat Buchanan, back in 1992, who popularized the term "culture wars"–as well as helping to frame the issue. His speech was derided at the time, by proved to be sadly prescient.
There's a sizable voting block that thinks Christianity is evil. They think Christianity must be suppressed.
A sizable voting block has embraced a secular totalitarian ideology. They fervently believe that everyone should be made to think and act alike. And it requires the bulldozer of a totalitarian state to steamroll dissenters and level things out.
It's striking how impressionable and easily manipulated this voting block is. How they surrender themselves to be brainwashed by one-sided rhetoric.
And it's striking to witness their indubitable judgmentalism. If we live in a godless universe, then human existence is like a stream of taillights headed into oblivion. One after another, each driver passes into the darkness of absolute oblivion. When you were born, some cars were ahead of you and others behind you. You can see a stream of taillights ahead of you. And, in the distance, you can see taillights extinguished as the lead car disappears into oblivion, followed inexorably by the next car and the next. As you go through the lifecycle, you edge ever closer to the devouring shadow of nonexistence. You see the taillights ahead of you vanish. There's nothing on the other side. No road on the other side. No cars steaming away.
You are trapped in your car, in the chain of cars, as it moves relentlessly forward, at the same mechanical pace, in the same fatal direction. A journey into nothing. That's all there is to human existence. All there is to each individual life. The fateful procession from nothing to nothing. The only thing in-between is the cortege. And yet the secular progressives are hellbent on a ruthless utopian crusade–as if anything matters.
They stoke the politics of hate and self-hate. They hate Christians. They hate Orthodox Jews. They hate whites. They hate men. They hate boys. They hate masculinity. They hate straight men. They hate straight women. They hate the elderly. They hate the disabled. They hate kids.
They hate themselves. Self-hating women (feminists). Self-hating men (transgender women). Self-hating whites (guilt-ridden caucasians), self-hating Jews, self-hating Asian-Americans, &c.
Much of this is based on woeful and willful ignorance. Self-reinforcing prejudice. They only listen to one side of the argument.
Increasingly, you have men, women, and couples who hate kids. They have dogs rather than kids. If they had kids, that would generally create a bonding effect, but they don't.
We now have a concerned campaign to butcher the bodies of children through puberty blockers and sex-change operations. Public school exists to indoctrinate the next generation to become robotic drones of the totalitarian state.
They labor under the illusion that they will benefit from the revolution. But nearly all secular totalitarians will suffer the same fate as Christians. The only people who benefit from a totalitarian state are members of the paper thin ruling class. All the goodies are diverted to the ruling class. The loyal progressive voters are just a temporary, expendable tool. Once the totalitarian state is in place, the loyal little foot-soldiers who made it happen will join the wretched ranks of the massive underclass. Look at China under Mao. Look at the Soviet bloc under Lenin, Stalin, and Brezhnev. Look at Cuba and North Korea.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
And the darkness overcame it not
Recently I was watching a performance of "Surely, he hath borne our griefs" (Isa 53) from Handel's Messiah, performed by King's College Chapel:
Everything about it was ideal: the setting, the message, the music, the performance.
A pocket of light in a world of darkness. If we resided in a world without darkness, there'd be no occasion to question God's existence or benevolence. If we resided in a world without light, there'd be no reason to believe in God's benevolence–although some transcendent being would still be necessary to account for many things.
But what about a world that alternates between light and darkness, in time and place? If light is the ultimate reality, we can explain the existence of moral darkness, but if darkness is the ultimate reality, how can we explain the existence of light? Shadow requires light. Light is not the absence of darkness. Rather, darkness is the absence of light. Light is primary while darkness is the side-effect of light's absence or occlusion.
Dropping the metaphor, moral evil presumes that something went wrong. Things ought to be better.
Christianity is threatened in England–by secular totalitarians in league with Muslim totalitarians. Threatened to be enveloped by darkness
But Christianity has always been threatened–both inside and outside the church. From within, by heresy, dead formalism, and moral corruption. From without by Islam, secularism, paganism, &c.
Yet within a dark world, stubborn pockets of unquenchable light remain. Pockets of light behind enemy lines. Despite ruthless, fanatical efforts to extinguish the light, it continues to reignite. It rekindles in the most unlikely places. And the surrounding darkness makes pockets of light stand out all the more. The persistence of light in a darkened world gives us reason to hope for the best.
Saturday, December 08, 2018
Thursday, July 19, 2018
The False Prophet
Who is the false prophet in Rev 13:11-18? Preterists identify the referent as the Roman imperial cult, and that's certainly germane to 1C Christians. However, I'm inclined to think Revelation uses flexible imagery that has multiple referents throughout the course of church history. Sometimes the threat to Christians comes from a hostile religion, like Islam or the Roman imperial cult. But sometimes it comes from within, when a corrupt church forms an alliance with the state to persecute the faithful, viz. Arian bishops, Roman Catholicism, "official" churches in China, the Russian Orthodox church in league with Putin, and Progressive Christians who team up with secular progressives.
Monday, June 04, 2018
Ben Shapiro on Masterpiece Cake ruling
David French is more optimistic while Ben Shapiro is more pessimistic:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/31422/heres-what-you-need-know-about-masterpiece-ben-shapiro
A lot hangs on the future composition of SCOTUS
https://www.dailywire.com/news/31422/heres-what-you-need-know-about-masterpiece-ben-shapiro
A lot hangs on the future composition of SCOTUS
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