In 1971, political-leaning John Lennon wrote a song that has a terribly beautiful feel and melody, and that has since moved people (musically and/or ideologically) of many spiritual/political leanings, seemingly transcending the actual linguistics of his imagined world.
“Imagine there’s no heaven
– John Lennon, “Imagine”
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin’ for today
Ah
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one”
Words have immense power and linguistics can be tools to invite us into all kinds of “spaces.”
Imagine for a moment a world where the Church has insidiously climbed aboard a political/ideological airplane. The ticket is linguistics, and the passengers climb in with good desire to “just follow Jesus” and for the “reign of Jesus” in the “kingdom of God”. Mid-flight, they realize they are on a hijacked plane with an unclear destination. While our Lord’s prayer does express that God’s will (reign) be done on earth as it is in heaven, the passengers are now wondering “what does that even mean?” Prior to boarding, many would not have thought that enabling coercive, earthly, political powers to mandate that which is destructive to families and society by establishing some “earthly” rule or human-driven “justice” was a flight they were up for. But, now, the landing gear of this big, steel, man-made vulture is clunking down at the only airport clearing for its landing…what to do…what to do…
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Imagine a world where ministers no longer are constrained from their family’s sustenance being tied to their gospel service in a local church community with a physical sanctuary. Imagine a world where ministers would receive their economic support from being part of a huge online network–a network many times over in size compared to their local flock they have been named as a shepherd thereof. Traditionally, I believe that first and foremost, the local church community is for the strengthening, edification and even material and personal assistance to the individuals and families within that flock.
Surely there are very real and time-requiring needs of many sorts that elders and shepherds are responsible for within their local sphere. They are tasked with teaching believers from the scriptures and rightly dividing the word of truth. They often interface with worship practices and all kinds of service that rightfully should (and historically has) taken place within the context of the small, local church assembly/congregation/parish.
But imagine being invited to “reset” the very idea of “how to do” church–moving the epicenter of New Testament communities of believers to a missional view that easily merges with other current post-modern worldviews/agendas. How confusing would that be–to call believers into conforming the Church to post-modernist relevancy that potentially deconstructs foundational Judeo-Christian practices and understandings going back to Genesis?
I am of the mind that the over-riding mission/goal of God seems to be expressed in the original pre-fallen creation and in the promise to Abraham.
Adam “walked with God” in the beautiful garden and was told, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) and (to Abraham, concerning His covenant) “In you all the families/peoples of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)
What is more sacred than human life and its flourishing, and the context of the family? Why on earth would any believer in Christ gravitate toward a context of post-modern, post-objective-truth, post-family ideologic facilitation?
In Psalm 11 it says, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (vs. 3)
For me, these days, the lens I seem to be using to examine the fruit of things in the Church is asking myself, “How does this truly bless humans in their connection to Jesus and the deep things of God, and in the context, particularly, of natural and spiritual ‘family?'”
Are we advocating for ideologies whose eventual destination is the deconstruction of family and fulfilling God’s desires for humans to multiply and establish godly families and a godly heritage? Are we advocating for new conceptual frameworks which cause younger generations to disrespect the godly works/views/practices/sacrifices of previous generations, calling even their true commitment (albeit we are all flawed) to have “embodied the gospel” into question and discordant disconnection?
Maybe it’s too personal to me, but once I witnessed the “airport destination” of a number of intersectional social movements (also) casting their net in the Church, and almost daily read of the personal sufferings in the realm of family that many Christian parents are on the receiving end of in terms of gender ideology and other radical, post-modern departures from objective truth into one’s “lived truth,” anything that remotely resembles some form of embracing these things within the Church becomes the metaphorical “hill I will now die on (in terms of assessing and speaking).“
I think one fair question is, why are Christians getting on board (or staying aboard) this politically hijacked plane? That’s another huge discussion, but for some (like I previously consider myself), they want to get off another politically hijacked plane. Initially they might truly believe they aren’t simply switching gates on the same type of politically-hijacked flight/destination. For me, it took immense personal devastation to see the fruit this flight bore in my family. And now, I cannot unsee what I saw…
I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, and the metaphorical hens and egg-laying is oh so elusive.
But if I listen to the sounds these “hens” are making–the particular linguistically patterned ‘cluck-cluck-cluck-sqwak-sqwak-cluck’ that is heard around the “dawning reset of this ‘new day'”–it becomes just slightly more clear than mud what may be happening…
These days it seems a wide net is being cast by the fowler(s), and largely through the internet (which is also the current, most prominent vehicle for the powers and the corruption and the sin and sufferings of this world). Imagine for a moment that the god of this world is casting this net to bring God’s people into submission to “his kingdom” and agenda.
The net(s)/network(s) are so wide (yet move in a similar manner, which is of a global nature) that if the Christian isn’t ensnared in one version of this “global net(s)” he/she becomes ensnared in another version.
Awhile back I wrote a piece about Randy Clark’s so-called “Global Awakening Ministry” (FAMILIAL GENERATIONAL SPIRITS: VINTAGE ~1994) and its possible connection to the spreading of pagan, demonic kundalini spirits that may have infiltrated the Church in this “movement,” rather than connection to the true work/ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Today I want to draw attention to another prominent Christian voice who, along with a number of other voices in the Church, is “inviting the Church to be ‘reset’ (or ‘reimagined’)” within the context of post-modernism. While I am only basing my opinions here of this particular teacher’s/author’s overall ideology on that which I’ve been able to get a cursory sense of online (having been both introduced to him online and researching him further online, ironically), it seems clear to me that the linguistics of his “invitation” mimic/utilize current post-modern worldly linguistics of “creating space” and having a “conversation” and other linguistics of the so-called “Emerging Church,” coupled with ideology of a missional goal of the church as a de-centralized “presence” in the local community. And this is setting off red flags to me.
I thought about the UN’s/WEF’s 2030 agenda and the goals of the “Great Reset” (which cross over, by necessity, the purviews of every institution of society: church, agriculture, education and so forth).
“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world”
– Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum.”
Imagine for a moment, a prominent “disciple-creator/replicator of Christian practitioners” moving under the umbrella covering of “Christian/Christianity/God’s Church” now utilizing identical ideological linguistics of “reimagining” and “re-setting” the Church of God (in Christ)?
By what authority do such teachers move? Does scripture give/indicate to any believer a future need/permission to “reimagine” or “reset” (in essential, timeless, foundational doctrines and/or practice…i.e. “ecclesiology”) that which God Himself has clearly imagined, created and established and communicated to us from Genesis to Revelation in the collection of books/writings we call the bible?
A Call to a New Imagination for Church: The Church as ‘Demonstration Plot’ for His Kingdom- David Fitch
Of course, first, to rsvp this “invitation,” we need to be taught how to “properly” read the bible. In the way that John the Baptist prepared the way of the Messiah, Jesus, there are a great many books being written these days at “re-educating” the saints in “how to read the bible” who are possibly preparing the way not for Christ but for things that are “anti” or antithetical to the Christ and His reign. We are being “invited” to read the bible in ways that radically depart from the historic Judeo-Christian faith and “missional” purpose/human/family/individual/community practices of both Old and New Covenant.
Part-and-parcel of this new age theology/world-palatable-aligning religion is deconstruction (which holds amounts of disrespect) for older generations. That is required for the “new religion” to enter and take root. When we are being invited to reimagine, can we for a moment imagine what it is like–what potentially piercing pains, woes and griefs it might bring–to witness in your later, golden years much of what you had given yourself to being deconstructed and burned away by this new, strange fire?
In my own life/family wounds that have come through various forms of this new age social/family “reset” I have personally suffered what it is like to find yourself in a personal/family relational world you could have never imagined in your worst nightmare. And it is for this reason, as I stated earlier, I will decry anything that even resembles the Church boarding a flight to this hellish land…a land many God-fearing parents (and others) are now navigating with brainwashed, indoctrinated children/young adults who are not only forsaking Jesus but forsaking the genuine and non-toxic love, care and godly, respectful relationship with their Christian parents.
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Now surely, there have been many bad readings of scripture over the ages. It is always a good thing to correct bad readings of something so important as God’s message to us and to the world. But there has also been sufficient good reading and consensus to produce disciples of Jesus (as countless as the grains of sand!) and to build and establish one holy Christian Church—the body of Christ–and the “already-yet-not-yet-full” reign of our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus (the Christ).
Additionally, many who have walked so faithfully serving God in their own small and larger purviews of family, congregation, giftings and community, for a great number of years, and are at a time in life where they should be taking rest and joy in their lifelong participation in the work of Christ’s kingdom, are now being called into question by younger generations in a way that I find disrespectful and unworthy.
While each younger generation rightly seeks to correct the sins and shortcomings of previous generations and institutional practices of religion, metaphorically and unnecessarily pushing some of these aging and physically ailing saints into prematurely (metaphorically) “rolling over in their graves” while they are experiencing their elderly end-of-earthly-days, is sad and in some cases, appalling. But of course, this ideologic church trend seems to be mimicking the worldly, post-modern call to march through every institution with a view toward deconstruction. (I have two previous posts here called DECONSTRUCTING DECONSTRUCTIONISM – and – WEAPONIZED EMPATHY, OPPRESSION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE (DECONSTRUCTIONISM DECONSTRUCTED PART II) – which likely contain inter-related thoughts to this piece.
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A quick search will show in bold relief the contradictory nature and presentation and differing discernments of so much of what we see online. The average person is left not knowing what to believe. In my Google search (though I didn’t click on the Politico-fact article, the beginning linguistics indicate a denial that the statement in a 2016 WEF video trailer substantiates the stated goal that by 2030 “you will own nothing and you’ll be happy.” At one point I somehow had watched that original trailer but it seems hard to locate now. It should be noted that this statement in itself is a product of post-modern “subjective truth.” Any reader of dystopian literature should immediately understand why linguistics and redefining basic truths such as what it means subjectively to love or what it means subjectively to be happy, or to be free or to be a slave is pivotal to the capture/ensnarement. The lie is that your arrival at a different destination of what you might have considered love or happiness ten or twenty/thirty years ago, for example, has now been slowly crafted and promoted to you in a manner which makes you deceptively believe that you originated the thought, rather than those wielding the oppressive power (often leading you to believe they are freeing you from “oppressive power”), having slowly facilitated your re-imagining of what it means to love or to be happy.
Wikipedia also attempts to alter/spin the understood meaning/implications of the statement “You will own nothing and you will be happy” (at least the contributors don’t deny the statement was prominently made) by an attempt to elaborate and contextualize and mitigate how one might view the forward implementation of such an ideal. Essentially, the statement came from someone’s essay that imagined a world where appliances were no longer personally owned by anyone, and instead are owned/maintained/upgraded by entities other than the private citizen. This, incidentally, follows the pattern of current-day software “ownership by subscription” or so-called vaccines where we don’t own any true immunity and are increasingly dependent on those in powerful medical/financial/government institutions to “upgrade” our personal bodies with “boosters.” (This potentially forced-coerced “subscription” to medical treatments/experimentation on our bodies and those of our most vulnerable–young children–should in-and-of-itself be a clarion call to stop putting blind faith into such political and financial institutions of earthly power).
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Part of the Great Reset involves the notion of creating the 15-minute self-contained city. In the name of climate justice and other so-called justices, the life, dependency, movements and every aspect of human living would be controlled/managed (by the “new oppressors”) in this contained area. Anyone who knows World War II history should think about the initial ghettos created for the Jews, prior to their transport to the death camps.
Or, we could consider coal mining communities and The Company Store.
Since the Church is being invited to re-imagine how they “do church” and their missional goal of taking the Church out into the community rather than the historic bringing the community into the Church, perhaps we should imagine how this goal might align with the goal of the 15-minute city.
How many of us currently travel beyond 15 minutes to the worship community of our choice, based upon our freedom in Christ (and in our nation) to think and discern for ourselves where God wants us and our families to best grow in kingdom matters? Imagine if the Church slowly relinquishes the freedoms in which it has come to enjoy, nurture and flourish that exist under earthly rules that currently so permit? Imagine, if alongside of potential food rationing, population control and medical un-ethics, the Church no longer is a mainstay of spiritual and physical centering. Historically, families have centered their lives around the joining with church as community, and have welcomed outsiders into the life of Jesus and the family of God.
Ironically the new “Church-imaginers” claim to stand against earthly political powers–yet seem to closely align–re-naming or otherwise obscuring the interlinkage. I’ve seen these voices argue (and in the past I have done so in similar fashion, to my deep remorse and u-turning) for some clear separation of “church and state” in school situations where Christian and non-Christian parents alike are opposing (through various means) the teaching of the state-endorsed “transgender religion,” while failing to see themselves as potential advocates/enforcers of this agenda of the state.
While the very real issue of how to love and accept with grace while holding to/speaking truth can be very difficult and complex, I don’t find it helpful for ambiguous circular-sounding jargon such as in the following short presentation by David Fitch, Pastor/Professor at Northern Seminary.
There is nothing new under the sun and my concern is that many Christians (especially the young) are both ignorant of scripture and ignorant of history. And additionally, we and the younger generations especially are products of post-modernism. How can the products of post-modernism correct post-modernism by adapting even more deeply to its core tenet of one’s “lived truth”?
So when the net/network is cast among believers inviting us to reimagine and reset practices and characteristics the historic church and the historic faith, will we walk straight into the trap the snare of the fowler?
I thought about the scene in Sound of Music where the Von Trapp family showed up at the Catholic Church toward the end, to be (at least temporarily) hidden. I did a quick search concerning whether that was an official rule of wartime that physical church buildings were considered akin to an embassy, and that sanctuary space prohibited entrance of military. I believe I have heard this at one time, at least it may possibly have been true during WWII. It would take further reading to know for certain.
While I don’t know nor have time to research this per se, it is not hard to imagine that historically, church buildings and centralized churches have served a variety of valuable functions in local communities and in the world, especially during war time and times of economic difficulties and even plagues. First, they provide physical shelters, and when a community wants to come together in activities ranging from the celebratory joyful to the observationally sorrowful, the sanctuaries of the Church (both as a physical center and as a human center of Christian community) provides such refuge.
I think of those that gathered to hear Dr. King in the Holt Street Baptist Church during a pivotal point in the Civil Rights Movement. I think of churches that host beautiful community free concerts such as holiday performances of Handel’s Messiah. I think of the many churches across the United States and the world that have facilities to provide food and other resources to the community and to those in need, and to hold bible studies and host children’s activities and so much more. I think also of the many Christian churches that provide alternative education of all sorts in the form of private schools. To de-centralize the Church’s historic mission and practice to be visibly present and available to the community–especially in times when there is War, or economic resources are scarce–would appear to align with any potential future agenda to ration resources and control the behavior of citizens.
Many ills and evils we have seen emerge in society have been a result of the internet. Prior to that, for example, something that was considered a dangerous religious cult/political movement often had a physical location (ex. Waco, or Jim Jones or The Source Family or Malcolm X) and an identified main leader. But today, many movements in the world and in the Church cannot be as easily identified with any one leader or even location, since its spread is through cyberspace. And with the utilization of post-modern linguistics, identifying rogue Christian ideologies become more difficult.
I believe that many do not fully grasp the juncture we are at, ideologically, and how so many things are converging. For those who want to explore and consider further, I highly recommend a careful listen to the following talk The Globalist Agenda/with Jason Bradley. As Christians, we need be aware of this “Brave New World” and the implications for continuing to seek first Jesus and His kingdom in light of these changes which are already in motion.
While it is true that Jesus is present anywhere/everywhere and especially where two or more are gathered in His name, and while it is true that the early New Testament Christians did not have the type of church buildings we have come to know throughout history, it is equally true that a physical building and ownership of property carries with it a number of spiritual and practical benefits that seem to outweigh some of the disadvantages. Even those who gravitate toward the house church model are relying on private property ownership in large degree.
The physical structure and centralized meeting of the Church within small, local church communities would definitely be something those in power with the agenda of a multi-faceted global “world reset” (along with de-population and other changes in world governance) would consider to be an impediment.
This impediment would need (and those in power most likely prefer) a gradual emerging of a different mindset and orientation among Christians that parallels the goals of the agenda. If we make the assumption that these agenda goals are in inherent conflict with the shalom of God expressed in Genesis 1, and also take into consideration New Testament warnings against the schemes of the evil one and the messages directly found in Scripture to the seven churches of that time period, we who believe and want to walk in the true and unadulterated reign of Jesus as subjects of His kingdom, should return to reading and deeply knowing these scriptural messages to us.
Even in the early Church there were arguments because believers followed the flavors and practices of certain other specific leaders. Paul clarified that they should only follow him as he follows Christ.
A Church Divided Over Leaders
– I Corinthians 1:10-17
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Fast forward to 2023 and I, like many other believers, have at times overly attached myself to the thinking/understandings and yokings of prominent voices in the Church–for the better or worse of it all. Some of these voices even claim to be in the Church but are departing radically from the historic faith and practice.
Perhaps because I now consider myself emerging from the Emerging Church (I link just one of many resources/slants available that describe/evaluate the Emerging/Emergent Church) after a significant time period of listening to the latter (meaning, where they eventually ended up “conversationally”) voices such as Rob Bell, John Pavlovitz or Brian McLaren, that the cells in my spiritual soul/spirit have been trained to recognize and put up anti-bodies toward such destructive ideologies.
The problem is, however, that like in most things that are deceptively askew, there’s enough truth and good things and good practices to draw us in and leave us confused, at times.
In my search briefly about churches as a type of embassy of sorts (at least during world War II) this article came up The Church in World Wars I & II: Adopting Christian Realism. I think it’s worth glancing over, but I have not read it in full. It does eventually get into the topic of conscientious objection which is a huge conversation and beyond any points I want to make here. Other than there is a huge tension, as this article rightly points out, that exists with how the Church and individual believers should respond to deep moral atrocities, War and coercive regimes.
I do believe our nation and our world has been engulfed not only in a man-made global pandemic, with all the changes even in church gathering habits that were directly or indirectly a result of this situation, but we are also facing engulfments on every battlefront from economic to threat of world War to corrosive forms of social justice and equity enforcement, redistribution of power and wealth (that are political movements that some, if not many in the Church, are rubber-stamping with scripture, rather than have scripture dictate the attitudes and actions of believers and believing communities), and medical mandates and mutilations mis-named as “gender affirming care” and “keeping others safe.” And in the aggregate of the seemingly separate elements, I see this great danger for the hijacking of the historic Christian Church.
It’s just a lot to consider and to exercise discernment. At this point I am merging the beginning of a different piece I started recently, and putting it at the tail end here. It raises the question of how this creature or net or even network is moving and can be identified. The biggest problem I see is that it is quite elusive. But its DNA seems to be replication by linguistics.
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(from my other rough draft):
…and How Does This Creature MOVE in “Space” and Time?
First and foremost it seems that historically this creature moves upon words. Like watercolor pigment/paint or oil pigment/paint, words are its medium by which it travels and spreads and adheres.
The “creature” may slink upon the ground leaving paw prints of the “spaces” it has been roaming, or it may drift on the wind, and we hear its great, steel wings clunking down…preparing to touch down in its seemingly elusive destination(s). In fact, the sky radar often has trouble discerning and detecting the flight pattern of this writhing, ground-crawling, internet-slinking, devouring lion. It is that crafty of a crafting.
These days, we are being invited to join its “conversation.” I love a good conversation (and I love words as well) and I hate how the creature has hi-jacked an otherwise useful word. Just five years ago my ears might have perked up to those in the “Church” wanting to create a space for meaningful (and “missional”) conversation; these days, I seem to go out of my way to redeem language itself and might say, “there needs to be a platform for discussing and exposing this slippery, destructive, death-bringing creature.“
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