God’s Word, His Church, His World, and His Truth

Man has been at war with God since the fall. By his grace, God designed Christianity to function dynamically within the fallen world. To be effective, the church must have a true understanding of his word and a true understanding of his world. God reveals truth both in his written word, and in his created world. Any denial of God’s holiness or man’s depravity, as revealed by God, disables the church’s mission through promoting falsehood.

There is a concerted effort to distort both God’s word and his world by his enemies. God’s word presents mankind as guilty and condemned before him. Without an awareness of his sin, man has no reason to seek after God for salvation. Man’s denial of this ugly truth keeps him separate from God and causes much of the world’s desperate condition. Only when man confronts this truth about himself can he recognize his need of God. Denying the ugly truth promotes mankind’s continuing defiance of God and legitimizes the evil that man does.

The Christian faith is a reasonable faith based on actual events that left ample evidence for examination. The bible, along with its present day witness, the church, are God’s chosen means and method for spreading his message to mankind. The central evidence involves the miraculous, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his crucifixion. It was attested to by eye witnesses, who eventually recorded their testimony within the New Testament. The grave was opened, the tomb was empty, Christ had risen. The guards of the tomb were bribed to lie. Those who had conspired against him in life began to conspire against him in death through the suppression of evidence and the invention of myths discounting the truth. These witnesses themselves were accused of staging the resurrection and promoting a hoax. As time passed, many of the witnesses and their followers would be persecuted and often martyred for their testimony.

The persecution of the true church has persisted to this day. It attempts to weaken the claims of Christ and the faith of the remaining witnesses. It took an organized form early on, soliciting willing bed fellows who were motivated by self interest. The same is true today. It operates in secrecy and makes use of varied levels of deception. It takes both overt and covert forms. It uses both direct and indirect methods. It occurs through infiltration and domination. It may be sanctioned by the “church” or the state. It materializes, not only through individual, unbelieving hearts, but through organizations of unbelieving hearts. Christian’s stance opposing such unbelief is an extension of the battle they experience between the old and new man within themselves.

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.”

Ephesians 4:22-25

“Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”

Colossians 3:9-10

Denial of God’s word may be explicit, but is often implicit, and compartmentalized within the hierarchy of various organizations. The opposition seeks to alter God’s word and misrepresent God and his church to the world at large. More insidiously however, it seeks to misrepresent the world at large to itself, especially through forms of mass media.

It is ironic that Christians, many proponents of “intelligent design” theory, are willing to ascribe the destruction of culture to a type of natural selection. If creation implies a creator, it would follow that destruction implies a destroyer.

God, in his word, sets forth man’s role to govern his creation.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful , and multiply , and replenish the earth, and subdue it : and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Genesis 1:28

In the absence of respect for God’s law, the cultural mandate above degenerates into the law of the jungle. Failing to obey and enforce God’s moral law provides a recipe for societal destruction.  At the present time, one must consider, is society collectively committing suicide, or is it being incrementally euthanized? And who are the individuals and organizations responsible? What principles do they promote and oppose? How do they affect their control upon population?

“The undermining power of sin is always the cause of decay and deterioration in earthly kingdoms.”

Oliver B. Greene

Once these organizations of social influence and control are properly understood, a more cogent, yet more disturbing view of the world appears. Only then, do the seemingly organic, incremental, manifestations of societal decay take on a more conscious and coherent design. Within the church, Christian’s are seldom encouraged to investigate these malevolent organizations of God’s world and there is little tolerance of their curiosity. Organizations adverse to Christianity, seemingly far from the truth, remain a part of God’s world. Ignoring their relevance and influence promotes a sanitized perspective limiting the church’s understanding of, and effectiveness within the world. Embarking on an investigation of esoteric organizations is considered treacherous territory. Those demonstrating curiosity toward the investigation of such are often shamed into redirecting their efforts toward personal sanctification and their personal ugly truth. However, willingly ignoring these organizations perpetuates their virtual anonymity and contradicts scripture’s exhortation to acknowledge, expose, and oppose deeds of darkness.

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

1^st John 4:1

“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”

Ephesians 5:11

“When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”

-Robert A. Heinlein

To effectively interact with the world, to reason, and share the gospel, Christians must understand all religions and beliefs that make up God’s world regarding their prevalence, falsity, differences, and similarities, regardless of their degree of malevolence to Christianity. Paul describes the full armor of God as provided for this very purpose.

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

Ephesians 6:10-13

”For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God”

1^st Timothy 1:7-9

The church should not be intimidated by investigations into God’s world especially when it involves the ugly truth of man’s depravity. In the world, similar shaming and intimidation is used to discourage the full investigation of high profile crimes, involving broad political and financial networks. Failing to expose such activities has no place in civilized government or Christian faith. To assent to such secrecy equates to complicity, and reverences the criminal behavior. Denial of evil is a tenant of Gnostics and Cabalists. It is a Christian’s duty to expose evil in the light of truth, both personally and in the world at large. The alternative is to promote injustice and may involve the condemnation of the innocent.

As the guilty seek refuge within secrecy, they employ lies and alibis, fabrications and exaggerations. Scapegoats may be required to deflect responsibility. Such fraud often includes elements of the truth in the service of believability. When premeditated crimes involve two or more individuals they are known as conspiracies. In order to avoid punishment the criminals may plea bargain by either admitting to a lessened degree of responsibility and/or releasing information that people want to hear.

Unreasonable, official explanations for traumatic events of national significance provide a refuge for scoundrels, and an opiate for the masses. Under duress, within the wake of the event, an explanation appears to develop organically, that meets the cathartic needs of the victims and the pragmatic desires of the scoundrels. The truth of the matter is left marginalized and of secondary importance. The explanation defies verification, strengthens existing allegiances, excoriates existing enemies, and most importantly, minimizes the emotional distress of the victims. It demands a misplaced trust in civil authority and encourages a decreased commitment to personal responsibility. The official explanation, by rendering logical inquiry unnecessary, legitimizes the exercise of ignorance in the service of reasoning, promoting the usage of “positive thinking”.

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”

- Saul Bellow

Often expressed as wishful thinking, positive thinking, is perhaps, better defined as delusional thinking, or blind faith. It is the same blind faith attributed to Christians, by skeptics who fail to confront the verity of God, as he has revealed himself. Skeptics are often not satisfied by denying the personal claim the gospel makes upon them. They attack the witnesses and the evidence directly by means of either constructing alternative explanations for supernatural events, or denying the events altogether. Their promotion of God as a liar, or lunatic is simply the echo of Satan’s original thesis. The term blind faith is, in fact, a better description of the skeptic’s faith. For it is the denial of the evidence that produces the “disbelief”, a willful blindness producing “blind faith”. Remove this blindness and real faith appears.

“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay   in darkness.” John 12:46

Through the Holy Spirit, mankind must realize his blind, helpless condition, his necessary repentance, and the sufficiency of Christ, to believe God. A willingness to look at the evidence, and come to a reasonable conclusion is the logical ability that God created within man to lead him back to God. Though detractors persist to discount and suppress truth, the church remains a living witness.

Various heresies reappear throughout church history, from a spectrum of directions demanding ongoing attention. Most often, the attacks are directed toward church doctrine and practice. In its defense, the church is guided by Holy Scripture, historic confessions, catechisms, and occurrences of similar attacks from church history. This context, when prayerfully considered, provides the church its ability to distinguish between truth and error. Accordingly this same context is available to the Christian laymen, along with the spirit of God, and a redeemed conscience. The ugly truth of man’s spiritually dead condition before God, and his inability to justify himself is a popular target of the opposition. These attacks may come as bold accusations or subtle misrepresentations. They may come personally, from within one’s own heart, or externally, projected through other’s actions.  The natural man instinctively seeks God’s position by denying the truth about his own depravity, ultimately legitimizing the evil he does in the service of his own will. I recently discovered such a legitimization of evil which had been obscured by a misrepresentation of truth.

I had been on line verifying some Obama campaign rhetoric regarding the proposal of a civilian security force within the United States. Having met with rather quick success, and surprised how easily it was to validate the news through digital cross referencing, I proceeded to look into an event that had logged, curiously, in my mind from several years previous. It involved the collapse of Building 7 of the World Trade Center. I had presumed, after watching the collapse of the building on live television the day of 9/11, that I was witnessing a controlled demolition performed to address a loss of structural integrity, and ultimately secure the area from further mishap. I had heard scarcely any mention of this building for several years after its collapse. Much to my dismay, I soon learned that a demolition of such magnitude requires weeks and months to engineer. I sought out the official report and discovered that no one was admitting to the demolition. My seemingly trivial curiosity had transformed within an instant into a dynamic inquiry of considerable consequence.

As I looked deeper into the matter, I found many more facts that were left under reported, especially with regard to the events in Manhattan. As I began to share my interest in the collapse of Building 7 with others, I discovered the majority of those I spoke to had never heard of the building or its collapse. After nearly a year of investigation through a variety of means and sources, I was forced to accept conclusions that, though incomplete, were seriously disconcerting. The majority of the evidence I discovered oriented to truths dissimilar from the story presented to the general public. I soon discovered that there was an active, effort to suppress easily verifiable information and silence messengers.

“Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard”

Acts 4:19-20

As I confronted the seriousness of my conclusions I broadened my inquiry. Beginning with the 1993 WTC bombing, Oklahoma City, and Waco, I worked my way backward to JFK. My inquiry broadened to troubling developments, I had naively attributed solely to the organic decay of a godless society. These included developments within the recent history of psychology, agriculture, education, economics, politics, and medicine. Of special interest, beyond the before mentioned, were the history of eugenics in America, The Franklin Scandal, the work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, The Bohemian Grove, the Bush family, and the attack on the USS Liberty.

The unsettling nature of my discoveries has radically altered my world view, yet provided authentic desire for me to re-investigate God’s word with renewed enthusiasm. God’s world has been revealed as a much more deceptive and dangerous place. However, God’s goodness, grace, and love have emerged more infinite, perfect, and necessary than ever. Only through studying his word and his world, as he commanded, can we fully realize what it means to trust only in him. I no longer excuse media culture as merely the symptom of a lost world doing the best it can without God. My suspicion of, and toleration for, much of mass media has lessened accordingly. The irrational allegiance ignorance, and apathy it endorses begs several important questions.

First, is the “projection” of popular culture merely reflecting the depravity of our time, or is it complicit in its generation? Secondly, is it possible that the media seizes upon, or stages, outrageous displays to provide distraction, instill ambivalence, and build tolerance for further outrage? Thirdly, is the audience’s attention being directed toward a plausible, but utterly false, and directed perspective of the world for the sake of those in control? Fourthly, what makes the population at large so desirous of shocking and traumatizing fictional experiences, and utterly ambivalent to our country’s present nonfictional engagement in torture and  war? Fifthly, who governs the agencies of information and entertainment that have such tremendous influence upon the population, and why do they remain conspicuously under the radar and out of site? Finally, is it possible that the depravity displayed in the media is merely a decoy for a degree of depravity, so unspeakable and profound, that once uncovered, it would produce the actual fear and trembling prerequisite for repentance and a true spiritual awakening of God’s elect?

“It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the evil to suspect good.”

- Marcus Tullius Cicero,

The majority of the populace remains unaware or unwilling to confront these questions. They accept the elegantly deceptive view of the world projected through the media, awaiting spectacles that gratuitously draw their attention away from issues of consequence, allowing them ample opportunity to “express themselves”, within “discussions” that can do little more than advance moral relativism. Excusing distractions of depravity as simply outgrowths of mankind’s rebellion, fueled solely by commercial motives is a mistake. Opposing viewpoints and heated debates do not presuppose relevance. The vast corporate media  network, run by an ever shrinking number of owners, with daily access to an entire population should be under, not above, suspicion at all times, especially as it showcases and modulates ongoing thematic presentations of “outrages” that fatigue viewers into capitulating to their own prescribed, and implied “solutions”.

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

- Charles Mackay

The most casual observer of the mass media over the past several years must admit the accelerated intensification of “programming”. The highly descriptive, personalized, hypnotic concoction of sex, violence, and trivia, garnished with blasphemous obscenity directed toward the hated group of the day, heated over a sensational flame, producing a toxic visual brew, leaving ”viewers” as numbed and dumbed as any Gnostic mushrooms or witches spell, resulting in a myopic, misinformed, and alienated human condition, unable to sensitively observe, rationally contextualize, affectively love, or legitimately suffer without the aid of a pharmaceutical, or technological crutch, and resulting in a fragmented, fatigued, disconnected, uninformed, and suspicious population of “subscribers” whose awareness of, and participation within the media matrix, offers the universal sociological connection that advances the desired dystopic, global mindset.

“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger sins.”

-John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople

“Uncensored patience sows the seeds of vice, nourishes negligence, and encourages good people to do evil.”

- Thomas Aquinas

While most media criticism focuses on content, little criticism is made of the forms it employs to deconstruct the boundaries between reality and fantasy, relevance and irrelevance, consciousness and unconsciousness. Radio and television themselves, far from neutral mediums, are unable to contextualize, or diverge without “losing” the viewer or listener. Like newspapers, they default to simple, isolated ideas, visual symbols, sensations, and sloganeering. Multifaceted issues are simplified to “opposing” views voiced by “spokesmen”. It is curious that our political system has come to mirror such a structure. Two “parties” debate over isolated “issues” outside of meaningful contexts. Content is reduced to a catalyst for “theatrical” performances that perpetuate “viewership”. Viewers then, predictably, sacrifice their allegiance to partisan networks or pundits through a cult of personality.

“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.”

Marshall McLuhan

There are compelling books, and documentaries by independent film makers that offer verifiable, yet disturbing evidence regarding many of the specific topics mentioned earlier. The films however, nearly never appear on mainstream media, and must be purchased or viewed over the internet. While providing information that will spark curiosity, films simply cannot offer the necessary contextualization. This must be done independently, through books, over time. Through one’s own critical thinking, a reality based context develops, along with questions regarding the media’s content, format, and objectives. The more one investigates, the more natural curiosity is renewed. As a result, the media spectacle is seen more objectively as a distractive vehicle for disinformation, and a system of social control, fostering a plethora of sensations, intoxications, half truths and sound bites, leaving the viewer no choice but to become either, predictably reactionary, merely distracted, or mildly confused, but always too apathetic to investigate and verify its content.

“A pervasive medium is always beyond perception.”

-Marshal McLuhan

The media matrix continues to attract and hold the attention of the majority of the populace by default, just long enough to isolate them from one another, narrow their vision, foster their dependence, and discourage their curiosity, by providing a simple, safe, predictable, understandable, nonthreatening, and false world view, where they offer their idleness on the altar of the grand illusion.

“They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening “

–  George Orwell

There is a battle raging for the hearts and minds of men. The opposition promotes a distorted view of God’s word, and a distorted view of his world. Christians must search his word and his world for themselves, paying particular attention to the evidence, seeking out the testimony of witnesses, reading their accounts, thinking critically, and coming to their own conclusions. The church does not deny the world’s attacks to alter the correct understanding of God’s word. Neither should the church deny the world’s attacks to alter the correct understanding of God’s world, especially with regard to the depth of man’s depravity, as it continually shortchanges, and misrepresents itself through its “medium of choice”.