Sign of the times…

Last of the last days…

Young Mr. Marriott, of The Times, London, in the article below titled, “We may be godless but religion has its guises: Christianity’s decline has encouraged us to find other ways to express our more irrational side.” actually hits many true major notes as he traverses his daily life in darkness, lost to the truth and the real reality of all things.

He mentions the burgeoning faith of “personal truth” —relativism — that trumps objective reality [and is rooted in delusion, lies, and pure fantasy denying reality], he quotes T.S. Eliot who wrote, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” and ends with writing how human beings, not only in Great Britain as he is directly referencing, but if we are objective and keenly observant we then know with certainty what ails Britain with regard to Christianity is not sequestered on those islands countries, but permeates every Western nation, and the world — he writes how in the almost universal quest to supplant Christianity has not found an adequate substitute, that as Philip Larkin called the human “hunger . . . to be more serious”. Perhaps this is our greatest tragedy is our hunger for seriousness to not be quenched.

So many like the Samaritan woman at the well, although unlike her they refuse to speak to the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully, and then to listen to His reply, so convicted that they believe and go tell others of the amazing saving grace.

Christianity is in decline from within. Showing the stains, the rot, the decay without and throughout.

People pleasers pleasing no one rather than men and women truly of God, with God, by God, and for God.

Now, in America, the words apply to nation and politics in such a manner. Of the Republican party, with Trump, by Trump, and for Trump so help us Trump [or insert the idolized mortal flawed sinful man or woman of political bent and choice while omitting God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, or at most relegating Them to a lower level in the heart and mind].

I read an article this morning, written by a Christian man who I have reprinted articles he has written in the past here on A Crooked Path. I could not in good faith reprint his article I read this morning, in which he contends the only way to save America is for a pastor, a preacher, an elder, a deacon, a church leader, or a congregant from every church in America to run for election to office in local, state, and national elections in 2024, 2026, 2028 while removing every child in America from public school and this will allow America to grow and prosper well into the next century.

Really? Astounding for a Christian to imagine and state such a thing. It truly is.

Pure ignorance. On so many levels. Imagining men and women can establish the kingdom of God on earth, or at least in America, through political means. Exactly how the disciples who had spent at least three years in Jesus’ presence, and all the Jews imagined their Messiah being, a militaristic, political one to remove the Roman rule and reestablish the kingdom to an Israelite kingship;

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Acts 1:6-8

Also, see Luke 21 and Matthew 24.

Are we to be witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ or witnesses to and for a political ideology as we endeavor with such fervor to install certain ideologies in our nation once again — which, by the way, have been removed due to the SPIRITUAL WAR and NOT by the cultural or political war waged.

It is only through the pastors, the preachers, the elders, the deacons, and church leaders, the congregants turning from God, turning from Jesus, refusing and denying the power of the Holy Spirit, turning from faith in the power of God to work and replacing it with their will be done, all things accomplished through them and their imagined power — all the while using Christianity in vain, profaning the true root and Head of the faith!

When America richly received the blessings of God in the past it was not because; it was never the result of POLITICAL action taken by the people. It was by the spiritual nature, the faith within their hearts, and how they lived out their lives exemplifying being a light unto the world.

Faithful, church going — to churches where the whole Word of God was preached. where people walked into the buildings carrying Bibles, when people READ and PRAYED, and MEDITATED daily within the Word of God. When people prayed in a spiritual manner, a humble ad faithful manner rather than their perverse worldly political prayers cast heavenward.

When there were families. Consisting of a father, a man, a mother, a woman, and when the parents and children gathered around the dinner table together to eat a communal family meal — sans Smartphones, tablets, any and all manner of electronic devices to isolate and keep the devil happy and to interrupt family life as all are engaged in intent selfishness, all growing more isolated and only by the day.

I grew up in such a family. Where many an argument in discussion happened, but also for years upon completion of the meal, as we all remained seated at the table, a chapter of the Holy Bible was read. And where no meal was begun without offering up prayers to God in thankfulness, in mindfulness, in humbleness acknowledging where all things, all good things come from.

Good things do not come from the Oval Office, the Congress, any Parliament, or the Knesset. Good things, truly good things only come from God. Not from man. If appearing from man that is only because…

America was richly blessed by God in the times when there were no homosexual and so-called pastors who do not believe in the resurrection of the Lord, nor the virgin birth, nor much of what is written in God’s inerrant infallible living and active Word from pulpits preaching humanism and paganism and political agendas to those gathered together.

There were not myriad so-called Christian political PACS, groups, organizations, and numerous marches, protests, and political rallies all using the name of God and the banner of Christianity while in truth being 100% political in nature and intent, but rather faithful, God-fearing going to church a couple of times on Sunday, once during the week, working hard, keeping their heads down and their eyes and hearts uplifted to heaven.

And we wonder why things have become as they have. Christianity has become corrupted. Perverse. Polluted. Poisoned in paganism, politics, humanism, and far too many ignoring God and assuming they are the power, that they are doing the Lord’s work when in reality they are no different than any Marxist, socialist, progressive organization seeking its own worldly agenda imagining if only they could succeed and be the dominate force all would finally be well!

Do not misunderstand. One of the problems within the church is pastors, preachers, elders, and church leaders who appear oblivious to the times in which we live and they battle on Sunday after Sunday as if we’re living in 1953 rather than 2023 and what has transpired in those 70 years.

While others cannot strike a balance and Sunday after Sunday are either preaching the gospel of a political ideology, or the gospel of paganism whilst intermingling a wee bit ‘o Christianity to give the illusion and satisfy those gathered so they can lick and place another gold attendance star on that particular Sunday then going about the remainder of the week appearing no different than the most heathen of heathens!

Yes, Christianity is waning. It has been for some time now. Christianity has allowed itself to become perverted, corrupted, taken backward, and invaded by the world. All under the lie of being loving, tolerant, inclusive, with open arms to be people pleasers rather than pleasing God. To adopt and even approve of every worldly doctrine, which is founded in the lie, in delusion, absent of Christ while using Him in vain when it benefits.

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:4

This will be continued…as long as the Lord blesses me with this temporal life, or until He returns, or until the forces of evil prevail to such a degree in this nation, on this earth all places such as this are no longer allowed to exist…

Young Mr. Marriott is a perfect example of the people of the last of the last days that the apostle Paul wrote of and instructed us, to be looking for to recognize the times, within the words of Romans 1.

They know better. They attempt to deny God but know in their hearts He exists. Yet they are so lost, being such darkness while also being in darkness, so given over to the lies, noise, deceptions, delusions, and illusions of the time, so consumed in their wickedness and reprobate minds that God gives them over to those wicked an unrighteous minds to serve their pleasure rather than Him and His Son, Jesus Christ — because God knows they are so lost, in such darkness and wickedness that there is no turning in them to Him. All this validates and shows clearly the reality, the truth, that we are living in the Biblical times of Romans 1.

We are not to achieve, strive, accomplish, and endeavor through political means and ways, but rather through faithful, believing, as a healthy part of the body obeying the Head, in all things of God, in all things of a spiritual manner of the Lord.

THAT is the wellspring of change, true change, of blessings to be received, of health, well-being, and prosperity.

Not by worldly ways, political ways, the ways and foolishness, the vanity of man — but by the sound, faithful, true, and eternal ways of the Lord!

Read on…

Ken Pullen, A CROOKED PATH, Thursday, July 13th, 2023

We may be godless but religion has its guises

Christianity’s decline has encouraged us to find other ways to express our more irrational side

By James Marriott

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Reprinted from The Times [London]

If I were to go to church it might almost count as a demographically significant event. In the last census only 1 per cent of young adults listed themselves as affiliated to the Church of England. A new face at evensong might add a critical nought point nought something to that dismal integer and secure a bonus for an underachieving ecclesiastical bureaucrat. Our beleaguered national church is probably only a few decades from extinction.

A poll a few weeks ago found that Britain is among the most godless nations in the world: only 49 per believe. As a consequence, we are entering a new age of enlightenment. As religion fades, reason blossoms across the land. Our public discourse is a model of rational debate. Science is esteemed as never before in history. Ha ha ha.

In fact we are discovering that the decline of organised religion does not imply the eradication of human irrationality, human tribalism or the human longing for moral certainty. Astrology is — astonishingly — a booming industry. Antivaxers prosper on GB News. Among educated people there is a burgeoning faith in the existence of a quasi-spiritual “personal truth” that trumps objective reality. A fascination with apocalypse afflicts the “doomer” fringes of the climate movement and AI pessimists such as Eliezer Yudkowsky warn that the end of days is near (“everyone will die, including children”). Conspiracies such as QAnon have morphed into quasi-religions promoting visions of a child-sacrificing, blood-drinking elite that would not look out of place in a medieval Doom painting.

Fifteen years ago “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens launched gleeful attacks on religion. It turns out that what they really despised was human nature. Few are capable of living without faith of any kind. “Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” as T.S. Eliot wrote. The political theorist Samuel Goldman has proposed “the law of the conservation of religion”. All societies have a relatively constant level of religious feeling. What changes is how it is expressed.

It is no accident that the decline of religion has coincided with the outbreak of an age of secular moralising. It seems we cannot get by without the reassurance of absolute moral laws. The similarities between the “woke” movement and Calvinism scarcely need elaborating: the obsession with heretics, with spiritual purity, with the idea that we all bear the “original sin” of prejudice. But religious feeling is not only a phenomenon of the cultural margins. For many people, including those who consider themselves moderate, political beliefs have replaced religion. Controversialists and culture warriors use television and radio to preach the corruption of society with all the wrath of latter-day Savonarolas. Certain topics (Brexit) can induce evangelical fervour in the wrong sort of dinner party guest. In America the decline of religion over the past 20 years neatly tracks the rise of religious partisanship.

Ours is once again an age of moral crusades, rallies and mob persecutions. The 20th century saw the growth of individualism and the decline of participation in churches and other social organisations. Thanks to the internet, mass movements are back. Thousands can gather remotely to persecute or praise. For some, Twitter provides the ecstatic thrill of a revivalist meeting.

Our problem is that while liberal capitalist democracies have been good at making people free and rich they have not been good at giving them meaning or existential purpose.

The philosopher John Gray argues that in the 20th century, faith in progress replaced religion. Barack Obama’s Oval Office boasted a rug woven with the legend, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”.

The myth of progress was significant, even for people who accepted it more or less unconsciously. We should not underestimate the existential comfort that can be found even in the vague, ambient understanding that your children will be richer and happier than you.

Nowadays, progress is hard to believe in. Real wages stagnate or decline, the planet heats up, autocracy flourishes, parents no longer believe their sons and daughters will have better lives than them. As confidence falters, darker forms of irrationality flourish: conspiracy theories, apocalyptic yearnings, moralising rage. I am reminded of Kenneth Clark’s analysis of the spiritual plight of the declining Roman Empire: “The late antique world was full of meaningless rituals, mystery religions, that destroyed [civilisational] self-confidence.”

For all the ills of organised religion, it usefully bundled together our irrational impulses in one place where they could be recognised for what they were. Church and state could be cleanly separated. Now that the irrational is diffusing through society, it is harder to eradicate. Even in universities, which should be the lighthouses of reason, unreason creeps through in fashionable scepticism of “western science” or the belief that certain facts are morally impermissible.

And while we have been adept at replacing the worst of religion — its sectarianism, its certitude, its antipathy to reason — we have not found a substitute for religious virtues: seriousness, beauty, spirituality. Tawdry, twee and trivial modern society cannot satisfy what Philip Larkin called the human “hunger . . . to be more serious”. Perhaps this is our greatest tragedy.

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