You said it. I agree wholeheartedly. When all this crap started, it was worldwide and I knew. The fact that it wasn't D or R starting "it" just opened my door to the real world with a jarring entrance. The fact that I have been waiting for just this thing since the 70's was most helpful. And the fact that "Christians" go about their everyday lives as if nothing is up, and pastors and teachers IGNORE the moaning of their flocks and teach or preach about things that have no bearing on current events just trips my trigger. I live in Idaho half the year, in a small town. There are 2 classes of people, "Christians" and those who, well, don't go to church. Down here in Florida, in my neighborhood, there are many "Christians", but therein lies the division. I have never seen anything like it. It is denominational division and it is HUGE. So, first there was the mask. Dividing. Then the Vax. Really dividing, like the civil war in some families, but underneath it all is the spiritual division that this nation and it's "Christians" are letting happen. Fiddling while Rome burns. I. Can't. Stand. It. Well said. Wish you didn't have to spend your talent writing about this, but know you are bound to hit someone with an arrow and if what we say saves just one more person for The Kingdom, then it is good. ♥
Back when nearly the whole world fell in line with what was obviously irrational behavior and the governments operated in lockstep, I decided it was prep work or a trial run for the one world government that will exist under the Antichrist.
The devil is able to see the spiritual activities of God clearly and the fact that he’s operating in hyperdrive makes me convinced that he sees something. God is moving.
Spot on as usual!! The reason corona felt like it was governed by an overarching entity is because it was- a spiritual entity, not a human one. Love your posts girl.
Well stated, I’ve felt there was a definite spiritual component to the whole covid narrative from the beginning. 2 Corinthians 4:4 comes to mind “In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds...” As Believers we need to seize the time we have and talk about the Good News to a perishing world that seems to be getting darker by the day. Keep writing, His Word will never return void.😉
Truth in advertising: I am not the most spiritual person, but I can still appreciate your essay.
Here's a (possibly) related idea: I have finally cracked Tom Holland's "Dominion" (2021?). I am guessing that the magnum proposition that comes of his work is that values we may perceive as universal (small-c catholic) are more Christian (and oddly, not so catholic), at least by historical standards. Take, for example, the word "decimate". It is Latinate, of course, and it means to pluck out one and ten people from a village of obstreperous villagers and to nail them up on crosses. What a great way for the Romans to project authority and contain the restive masses. It's just what people, did, right? Brutal, yes, but not unexceptional. Yet, in a Christianized domain, such a thing would appear exceptional. Not that such things wouldn't happen. Things like German troops "liquidating" villages in a place like Belarus do come to mind. But the idea that even the lowliest among us was created in the image of God and that (therefore), the individual is entitled to the same kind of respect as that of any other individual ... revolutionary stuff in Tom Holland's account.
By Holland's account, we have been steeped in this Christian ethic without really appreciating it. By my account--I am still debating with myself about this: Not everyone has internalized Christian values; obvious they might seem to anyone raised in them; and therefore stunning to find that such values have not and are not universally maintained. To some folks, decimating whole communities might not appear incongruent with one's values. And, are there people in one's own community whose values might be fundamentally incompatible with one's own?
An application: "Putin" and the Russians might carry on about the great /existential/ threat that Ukraine might present to Russia were it to become incorporated with NATO. Why? Because NATO would yet become better equipped to invade the Mother Land. To the rest of us, that prospect might sound ridiculous. Those good, Western Europeans and their American backers; would they really even contemplate such a thing? Bizarre, no? But, maybe not. Maybe the values between Western and Eastern Europe are wider than we might appreciate. Maybe some of the concerns of others that we might be disposed to blow off really do amount to something more than just rhetoric.
More generally, it may be the case that certain values are more than not universal. They really may be incompatible.
When I read things like, say "Comanches" (Fehrenbach, 1977?), the incompatibility of values becomes obvious. The Comanches wanted to maintain the right to raid, pillage and rape. That is how young men in the tribe would secure higher status. Understandably, settlers in Texas wanted to be able to raise cattle and horses with all that raiding, pillaging and raping. There really was not compromise to be had. Eventually, one side imposed its will on the other, and that was that.
By Comanche standards: They weren't evil. They were "The People." They were exercising their rights as the people. By the standards of the Texans and Mexicans: Those people imposed on those Texans and Mexicans a norm of kill-or-be-killed. Those Texans and Mexicans stood up for themselves. People died. A culture perished. T'was not a culture informed by a Christian ethic.
A puzzle then: Why would Western Europeans have participated in un-Christian things like the liquidation of villagers in Eastern Europe? Any ideas, Tom Holland?
You said it. I agree wholeheartedly. When all this crap started, it was worldwide and I knew. The fact that it wasn't D or R starting "it" just opened my door to the real world with a jarring entrance. The fact that I have been waiting for just this thing since the 70's was most helpful. And the fact that "Christians" go about their everyday lives as if nothing is up, and pastors and teachers IGNORE the moaning of their flocks and teach or preach about things that have no bearing on current events just trips my trigger. I live in Idaho half the year, in a small town. There are 2 classes of people, "Christians" and those who, well, don't go to church. Down here in Florida, in my neighborhood, there are many "Christians", but therein lies the division. I have never seen anything like it. It is denominational division and it is HUGE. So, first there was the mask. Dividing. Then the Vax. Really dividing, like the civil war in some families, but underneath it all is the spiritual division that this nation and it's "Christians" are letting happen. Fiddling while Rome burns. I. Can't. Stand. It. Well said. Wish you didn't have to spend your talent writing about this, but know you are bound to hit someone with an arrow and if what we say saves just one more person for The Kingdom, then it is good. ♥
Excellent essay.
Back when nearly the whole world fell in line with what was obviously irrational behavior and the governments operated in lockstep, I decided it was prep work or a trial run for the one world government that will exist under the Antichrist.
The devil is able to see the spiritual activities of God clearly and the fact that he’s operating in hyperdrive makes me convinced that he sees something. God is moving.
Spot on as usual!! The reason corona felt like it was governed by an overarching entity is because it was- a spiritual entity, not a human one. Love your posts girl.
THANK YOU! A thousand times yes!
Well stated, I’ve felt there was a definite spiritual component to the whole covid narrative from the beginning. 2 Corinthians 4:4 comes to mind “In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds...” As Believers we need to seize the time we have and talk about the Good News to a perishing world that seems to be getting darker by the day. Keep writing, His Word will never return void.😉
Greetings, S --
Truth in advertising: I am not the most spiritual person, but I can still appreciate your essay.
Here's a (possibly) related idea: I have finally cracked Tom Holland's "Dominion" (2021?). I am guessing that the magnum proposition that comes of his work is that values we may perceive as universal (small-c catholic) are more Christian (and oddly, not so catholic), at least by historical standards. Take, for example, the word "decimate". It is Latinate, of course, and it means to pluck out one and ten people from a village of obstreperous villagers and to nail them up on crosses. What a great way for the Romans to project authority and contain the restive masses. It's just what people, did, right? Brutal, yes, but not unexceptional. Yet, in a Christianized domain, such a thing would appear exceptional. Not that such things wouldn't happen. Things like German troops "liquidating" villages in a place like Belarus do come to mind. But the idea that even the lowliest among us was created in the image of God and that (therefore), the individual is entitled to the same kind of respect as that of any other individual ... revolutionary stuff in Tom Holland's account.
By Holland's account, we have been steeped in this Christian ethic without really appreciating it. By my account--I am still debating with myself about this: Not everyone has internalized Christian values; obvious they might seem to anyone raised in them; and therefore stunning to find that such values have not and are not universally maintained. To some folks, decimating whole communities might not appear incongruent with one's values. And, are there people in one's own community whose values might be fundamentally incompatible with one's own?
An application: "Putin" and the Russians might carry on about the great /existential/ threat that Ukraine might present to Russia were it to become incorporated with NATO. Why? Because NATO would yet become better equipped to invade the Mother Land. To the rest of us, that prospect might sound ridiculous. Those good, Western Europeans and their American backers; would they really even contemplate such a thing? Bizarre, no? But, maybe not. Maybe the values between Western and Eastern Europe are wider than we might appreciate. Maybe some of the concerns of others that we might be disposed to blow off really do amount to something more than just rhetoric.
More generally, it may be the case that certain values are more than not universal. They really may be incompatible.
When I read things like, say "Comanches" (Fehrenbach, 1977?), the incompatibility of values becomes obvious. The Comanches wanted to maintain the right to raid, pillage and rape. That is how young men in the tribe would secure higher status. Understandably, settlers in Texas wanted to be able to raise cattle and horses with all that raiding, pillaging and raping. There really was not compromise to be had. Eventually, one side imposed its will on the other, and that was that.
By Comanche standards: They weren't evil. They were "The People." They were exercising their rights as the people. By the standards of the Texans and Mexicans: Those people imposed on those Texans and Mexicans a norm of kill-or-be-killed. Those Texans and Mexicans stood up for themselves. People died. A culture perished. T'was not a culture informed by a Christian ethic.
A puzzle then: Why would Western Europeans have participated in un-Christian things like the liquidation of villagers in Eastern Europe? Any ideas, Tom Holland?