Two decades ago I was showing an old Czech animated film, on Super 8 reel to reel, about war.
The idea of freedom was represented by a red flower and they couldn't kill it off.
They tried burning, stomping, culling, weapons of mass destruction were brought out - until in a mad frenzy, the full force of the state and its misguided denizens was brought to bear, stamping out any little red flower the instant it showed signs of emerging from the earth.
The resources expended were insanely huge.
Of course it failed and first one, then two, then four, then eight little flower stems sprouted until, at last, the whole killing fields were smothered in these red flowers of freedom.
Christianity stays alive best in this climate as well. It has always been an endangered species and all the more hardy and valuable for it. From Nero's oppression to the
new assault in this day and age, there has always been a motif of mockery, if not actual
martyrdom and for me that is pretty cool.
Social ills are sheeted home to it, it represents, in many godless humanists' minds an archaic throwback to a less enlightened time and these people go apoplectic if one has the temerity to defend the idea. I've had many on this blog.
Real Christianity [and we'll get into that later] always operates in a climate of suspicion and outright hostility, a climate I'm more than comfortable with.
Like the Cromwellian English the moment they step onto Irish soil, all reason departs its foes and the most outrageous and flagrant breaches of ethics and law are visited on it when it comes to this turbulent notion and those who believe in it.
As
Deogolwulf says:
She profaned a crucifix and called Jesus some horrible names. I’m only joking, of course: in Europe, such deeds might win you a prize, if they are done with sufficient effect.
Christianity's most dangerous enemy is
the False Prophet and his offsider,
the Strawman.
The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Knights Templar - all were secular hijackings of an originally good idea. Currently, the Nairobi Kid - Djwahl Kuhl - and various other manifestations, the Billy Graham and Swaggart ministries,
the Mega-buck Churches, the
controversial and seemingly
Laodician Rowan Williams, the P2 under another name today - all are False Prophets or might well be.
Know them by their fruits is a great maxim and another good one is Frodo's Maxim, in Lord of the Rings, as he says:
I think one of his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler if you understand.
To which Strider laughed:
I see ... I look foul and feel fair. Is that it? All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.
Tiberius Gracchus accuses me:
To arrogate such power to yourself ... [to see what is in people's hearts] is pharasaical James- it is arrant heresy and far from Christianity, it is not for you to know what people are in their innermost hearts.
Forgive me but anyone with antennae can see much of what is bad fruit but the practised deceiver is another matter and can fool "even the elect", so the noble Tiberius is right in this respect. The practised deceiver takes much longer to expose.
The second danger is a generation growing up without any imparted code and logically turning into a William S Burroughs dystopic Chav and ASBO Teenage of indiscriminate sex, drugs, self-centredness and internal alienation. Poor, poor kids [and even the girls of my acquaintance decry what they see about them] The kids might even chant:
"We don't need no edjukashun ..."
The third danger is the whipping boy syndrome. A religion spawns murderers so ALL "religions" are to blame, the opiate of the masses ... and into the breach steps ... well ... what steps into the breach? Shopaholicism? Temples of Glitz? The Marxist ideal of enforced mediocracy and
Procrustean equality? Or is Clubbing, like Imhoter's chanting accolytes, the new religious sacrament?
The fourth danger is represented by the seeming anomalies. Why does G-d "allow" people to die? Do Buddhists and Muslims go to Heaven? How can Tacitus and Josephus be trusted as sources?
The fifth danger is represented by the devotees. From the Mormon offshoots to Christian Scientists - the public perception is dire. Earnest suited men, in pairs,
knocking on your door and asking you to open your heart to Jesus is hardly likely to produce the desired result. The happy clapping and blind faith in a choreographed, televised service is also hardly likely to enamour the Christian to the wider populace.
The sixth danger is the way Christianity falls foul of
new constructs such as sexual orientation, feminism and every other modern "ism". So one of my commenters says the faith must change to meet current realities, e.g. the need to have indiscriminate sex - awkward that, as the gospels are clearly against the notion. No matter - we'll invent the New Christianity which allows all those hedonistic delights.
The seventh danger is its seeming irrelevance, as perceived by the wider society. While Williams* would appear to do next to
zero to promote an actively caring ministry, while the Russian Orthodox Church singularly failed to speak up in Soviet times, whilst the Vatican went along with Nazism, the Christian faith seemed particularly irrelevant, save for the Salvos on the street and the workers in the hospices who toiled day and night to care for those on the street the religious chiefs had airbrushed out of their vision.
[* Actually agree though with Williams' stance against the teaching of Intelligent Design, as it doesn't need to be taught - it's bleedin' obvious anyway. Better to teach the gospel.]The eighth danger is the ridiculous descent into theological argument over such things as the
Filioque Clause or Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation, to name a few. It's always blurred the real aim, the central goal, by immersing it in philosophical niceties of the sort the pipe puffing pagans like to lose themselves in at university tutorials. I was one of these once, forgive me.
Having said all this, the truth is that Christianity will stand or fall by its own central premise, i.e. that it stems from G-d - so it's hardly our concern.
And it's actually more relevant today than ever. The reason is threefold:
1. The theological and metaphysical aspect. Very simple premise. The theory is that if you believe, whichever way you'd care to, that Jesus of Nazareth is somehow part of the Godhead and able to redeem sin, presupposing that there is such a thing as sin [the Satanists say not], then in that very act of belief, of acceptance, the third force of the spirit flows into you and provides both comfort and support [the water of Frank Herbert's Dune, if you like].
The issue of protection is hotly debated. I incline to the idea that you're protected insofar as you are doing His will but I don't think the Christian is any more protected from the vicissitudes of life - he just handles them, meets them differently.
The promise is comfort in time of trouble and the backbone to stand firm when necessary and it certainly delivers that.
2. The societal aspect. The Sermon on the Mount, in terms of the way to run a society, just as MacOS system is a way to run a computer, is pretty well unsuperceded. It's a great system in its base form but costly and difficult to follow and understand all the implications of. If everyone were to adopt its precepts, all the societal ills would melt away.
3. The obligatory aspect. There's no such thing as a free lunch and there's no such thing as an unpossessed person. If you're not possessed by evil and not by good, then you're possessed by a creeping hedonism and materialism which gets you deeper and deeper into the mire. The humanistic notion of the man-centred universe where he is the highest good and has self-determination is a complete illusion.
Man left to his own devices stumbles and falls. Chekhov wrote of it:
“Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.”’
Agent Smith spoke of it:
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.
He cannot exist on his own - he is not an island, as Donne perceived. The progressive enlightenment of man and ideas is actually a swindle - the humanist thinks he's heading for some sort of non-religious Nirvana but actually he's securing his place in Hell. To be more Illumined is to be further and further lost.
It's an insane pursuit, following the Eternal Loser and an insane loser at that, based on a panoply of lies.
When one becomes Christian, it is not self-freedom he achieves but thrall to another entity - his Maker. This carries obligations - for some the evangelistic course, for some the caring ministry, for others different ways. But who does not wish to find harmony with his mother and father, if such were possible? It's a noble notion.
What it does bring, committed Christianity, is inner peace. Just as a man trades away certain freedoms when he marries a woman but gains the joy of "completion" through wife and family, along with all his self-imposed obligations, so the Christian trades away freedoms and protections in favour of a higher inner harmony.
It doesn't seem so harmonious to outsiders when he's thrown to the lions or tortured but he trades his place in this world for a place in another and along the way he tries to bring joy to others. Through this comes his own joy.
We're coming into a time now when the message of Christianity is as real as it ever was, even more so. The false prophets abound - they infest the place and the only sure way is to adopt the "words spoken" as a personal guide. Does it mean that there'll be no more cakes and ale? Does it mean that women cease to be alluring or convivial company must cease?
Does it heck as like.
Why do non-Christians always assume that the stern moralist, like
Maugham's Davidson, is the only model? What of the ordinary Christian who doesn't make a big deal of it - the
Paul Linfords of the world?
Why do non-Christians always assume that you have to be a saint? I'm far from being a saint as certain ladies know - I'm just a sinner, reformed in certain respects.
Time to bring this to a close before
Mutley comes over and calls it all "piffle from beginning to end".
:)
What do you do when you wake up one morning to find that the home you've invested yourself into for your retirement years is on the planning board at some local council office, scheduled for demolition?
