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Posted on 02/02/2012 7:45:35 PM PST by WXRGina
But he is not stronger than Christ.... And so I do not believe this counter-conversion can achieve the critical mass
Spirited: No, the devil is not stronger. In fact, he must receive our Lord’s permission to ‘sift’ people as was the case with Job. The lesson being that God the Father is in control at all times, for which reason ‘fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
The point being that to the extent that man turns away from God He turns away from man until finally an unseen line is crossed at which time there’s no turning back. Voegelin made this point about Marx, describing him as ‘demonically occluded,’ meaning that God had finally and irrevocably turned away from Marx, at which time another spirit took control so to speak. Marx’s ‘free will’ was at an end. There was no chance of turning back.
Jesus described the last days as like the days of Noah, meaning that everyone but a few had turned away and been given over to another spirit, whether directly or indirectly. Hence their minds were as the mind of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor-—in tune with the devil.
This is the spiritual counter-conversion of which I wrote.
Yes it is dark, but sometimes only dark words can bring wanderers scurrying back to the Light.
“The same spiritual illness afflicts the left, in that their principle lie is that human beings are mere objects who react in a deterministic way to the environment around them
Spirited: The lie in fact describes the “tellers” of it. In order to believe that one is incapable of resisting depravity in its many forms, one must believe and propagate the lie. Thus the rejection of free will in favor of determinism. The rejection of the two sexes in favor of androgyny. The rejection of the living, personal God in favor of the impersonal, non-lifebearing god of forces.
The problem for such people are people who demonstrate by word and deed that not only is resistance to depravity fully possible but that rising above it-—reaching for that Rock that is higher than I-— is possible as well.
This so-called "new spirituality" has nothing to do with liberty. In effect, it holds out the promise of self-divination. One becomes enslaved to that idea.... And then seeks a "master" to guide one … I guess this is the "ME Generation's" idea of "spirituality."
Beautifully said, betty. I would add that we Christians are becoming more prone to a version of this 'new spirituality', if not by embracing an entirely new spiritual label, then at least by re-defining our own.
I have recently become disenchanted with many who I see both using their Christianity in ways that are not scriptural in nature, and personally modernizing Christ's teaching to fit their 2012 world view.
Quite often of late, when discussing the state of the nation and the world with a fellow Christian, I have received the assurance that 'we need to be strong in our faith because He is in control'. That assurance would be fine but for the fact that it is too often offered as an excuse for inaction or an unwillingness to become informed and passionate for change. At least from my own personal observations, many Christians have become lazy and are choosing to use their faith as an excuse for ignorance and apathy. It is so easy to stick one's head in the sand, for the simple reason that hearing, and becoming personally concerned, about the mountain of corruption, dishonesty, and outright evil that has infiltrated the leadership of one's country is deeply unnerving. So many of our brothers and sisters are choosing not to be a part of a battle against that evil, and are instead hiding behind their faith ... as if the Lord expects nothing of us but a profession of it.
So many are also incrementally accepting that which is not acceptable to Him simply because they are being bombarded with so much unholiness that it infiltrates their perception of what is right and acceptable to Him. Goodness and evil become diluted, relative concepts rather than issues of black and white.
I actually had a conversation with a co-worker this past week regarding what this administration is doing via the Affordable Care edict directed against Catholic institutions. It has amazed me how few people seem to think this abomination is of any general importance. She, a practicing Catholic herself, actually said to me, 'The Catholic church does have to lighten up on some issues, and maybe this will help them to do so.'
The further we turn away from His word, by lazily and apathetically becoming numb to those who defile it, or by somehow attempting to serve as our own interpreter of it, and thereby declaring it changeable over time, the more we are declaring ourselves to be our own gods, capable of judging degrees of sin, determining which sins are important enough to deserve our consideration, or re-defining sin itself.
I don't stop by here much anymore, but your post reminded me why I used to feel so comfortable here. Thank you for sharing your wonderful insights. :)
~ joanie
"...Now that I think about it, virtually all forms of mental illness have as a central feature a lack of movement, or a "stuckness" about them (or else a kind of meaningless agitation that goes nowhere). For example, when someone is depressed, it is not just that they are sad -- everyone has their moods -- but that they are in a kind of static, heavy, and occluded state of mind. There is no movement. Or, if there is movement, it's all arbitrary. Nothing is any better or worse than anything else. There is no convergent meaning, as everything goes "flat."
Let's take another example, the pathological narcissist. The narcissist typically develops a "false self" or "as if" personality to negotiate with the outside world. While he will use people to prop up and mirror the false self, in reality, there is no deep exchange with others, i.e., no L (love) or K (knowledge) link.
Rather, the clinical narcissist uses people in order to maintain a kind of static equilibrium, so as to avoid intolerable emotions, in particular, shame. In other words, the narcissist may outwardly appear to have a strong ego, but it is actually quite brittle. The very purpose of his narcissistic defenses (i.e., the false self) is to protect the unthought true self from an emotional catastrophe.
But such a person slowly dies from within, because if one cannot suffer pain, one cannot suffer pleasure. In order to maintain the closed system, __the narcissist also closes himself__ to real love, which causes the soul to wither from within. He eventually dies of his addiction to the false mirroring he craves.
When people hear the term "narcissism," they often think of it in terms of physical attributes, but it can equally apply to the intellect (or to any other positive attribute, for that matter). Academia is full of "brilliant" people whose intelligence has been hijacked in the service of their narcissism, the result being that their minds eventually become closed and therefore no longer susceptible to real organic growth (vs. a kind of mechanical accumulation).
Obama's anti-science advisor, John Holdren, comes readily to mind, but one could think of hundreds of others.
In all forms of enduring psychopathology, portions of the personality can become sealed off, frozen, and autistic, and therefore highly resistant to change -- like giant boulders, or sometimes fine sand, within the soul. Other times it is felt as a kind of icy glacier. The underlying reality is essentially joyless because it does not flow.
Some people who appear to be open are actually tightly closed systems who are merely interacting with their own disavowed projections. One thinks of the mythifolkers who suffered through Bush Derangement Syndrome, and who now constitute the OWSers -- the rabble without a clue -- and their academedia sympathizers.
It's fascinating when you think about it, because these people are under the delusion that they are interacting with the outside world, when it couldn't be more obvious that they are really just trapped in their own absurcular errspace. To withdraw psychic toxins from George Bush and reproject them into "Wall Street" is just a case of new whines in the same battle.
And here is another key point: this state also brings a kind of pseudo-freedom that conceals actual enslavement to the projected object, __from which the projector cannot escape__. It reminds me of the Taoist principle that if you want to control a bull, just give it a large pasture.
In America, "freedom of speech" is precisely that large pasture, in which __people are free to construct their own fences and define their own arbitrary psychospiritual limits__, which then provide the subjective illusion of real freedom. But [we, by our] very nature -- are very quick to identify these intellectual and spiritual fences, which we don't so much trespass as transpass.
For us, a wall is a challenge, not a limit. Build one and we'll just stand on it to see further. "~ Robert W. Godwin, Ph.D - (forensic clinical psychologist)
You may be interested in seeing what I posted today in regards to Charles Murray's brand new book entitled, "Coming Apart". It deals with what you mention above.
Wow. I wonder what they now think of Obama at Notre Dame. After all, they gave him an honorary degree. Shouldn't he be nicer to them?
Some random thoughts:
Christ does not save nations, He saves individuals and sends them forth with His message to share with others.
Life is an iteration of the Garden of Eden and Christ’s redemption. We started with everything we would ever need for sustenance and happiness, yet we separated ourselves from it. The Trinity, through Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection redeemed us and made everything again available to us. Life for man has been this oscillation of separation and rejoining. Where will each be when the wheel stops?
No, the Lord does not save nations in the sense of salvation to eternal life that He offers to each of us individually, but He does show favor to nations that acknowledge Him. I have no doubt that the Lord had everything to do with establishing the United States, and He caused us to do well for a couple of hundred years, because our Founders placed great importance on Christian morality in good government and God in His proper place above us.
Our culture began to disintegrate when we turned our collective backs on Him back in the 60s. That is what I meant when I said our nation must make a sharp, right-hand U-turn back to the Lord if we have any hope at all of stopping our slide into a communist totalitarian state.
Frankly, I don’t believe America will be spared at this point. With the widespread embrace of perversion and immorality in our culture and institutions (homosexual “marriage,” etc.) I do not believe God will smile on this nation moving forward.
Likewise, neither does He save church "organizations"; another "collective".
You are referring to the INVISIBLE church.
IE: Each individual (at whatever level of understanding) in whom dwells / is led by the Holy Spirit, embodies "the true Church".
Individuals comprising the true Church are scattered all over the world, and may or may not, be members of any of the VISIBLE brick and mortar organizations of men (a mixture of the wheat and the chaff) at any given time.
IMO, of course. :)
Our difference is simple. I am saying that God does not concern himself with the collective. He speaks to individuals. If the non-believers outnumber the believers a nation may destroy itself, but God does not destroy the nation. If our country is destroyed the believers will still be fine, simply through their faith.
A random thought which did not make it to my first post is - The gospel is simultaneously disarmingly simple and maddeningly complex. The magic key to unlocking it all is Prayer, Grace, Faith! Still, it is all personal.
You wrote: “I have no doubt that the Lord had everything to do with establishing the United States..”
“On the one hand, the United States, more than any other nation, is flat and dusty old Kansas. But at the same time, it is Oz, the vertical and shining Emerald City on a hill. We must never forget either fact, one of them Real, the other only merely real.”
Excerpted from:
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Sacrifice, Transcendence, and Vertical Recollection (Memorial Day)
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/05/sacrifice-transcendence-and-vertical.html
Memorial Day — like any holy-day — is not a remembrance of things past, but of things present; specifically, it is a remembrance of things surpassed, or of the things that surpass us. Specifically, it is an occasion for vertical recollection of a divine archetype that is present now — can only be present now — but requires the substance of ritual in order to vividly apprehend and renew it.
We remember our heroes because they illuminate the eternal realm of the heroic, a realm that we must treasure and venerate if we are to survive as a culture. Not only is the hero a transcendent archetype, but he is only heroic because he has sacrificed something in defense of another archetype — truth, liberty, beauty, the good, etc. In the absence of this true formulation, neither the heroic nor his sacrifice make any sense at all. This is why to “deconstruct,” say, George Washington, is not just an attack on the father of our country, but on fatherhood, God, and the realm of transcendent (i.e., the Real) in general. .....”
<>
More:
The Unthinkable Goodness of America
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2006/12/unthinkable-goodness-of-america.html
God repeatedly shows Himself concerned with "the collective." See His dealings throughout the Old Testament with Israel, and his destruction of evil-embracing groups of people--i.e. Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.
I can't deny that, but I will stick stubbornly to my point. The vengeful God of the Old Testament was replaced with a New Covenant of Love. The New Covenant requires individual salvation through Prayer, Grace and Faith.
Can a nation be saved, as in Washed in the Blood of the Lamb, collectively? That would be one gigantic Prayer Meeting. What about those in the nation who did not pray and who refused God? Would they be saved anyway?
You wrote: “God repeatedly shows Himself concerned with “the collective.” See His dealings throughout the Old Testament with Israel, and his destruction of evil-embracing groups of people—i.e. Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.”
Of course, you’re talking about the OT where God’s people were set apart as a visible “physical nation”.
They were a “shadow” of what was to come.
Now we have a “New Testament”. In the NT, Christ changed all that by ELEVATING the spiritual over the physical.
“America is the first country in the history of the world that valued the individual OVER the PRIMITIVE collective. Members of a “collective” have no INCENTIVE to excel at anything since there is no money in it.
When those who EXCEL and work hard get the same “reward” as the lazy and unambitious, they just dog off, too, and like in the Old Soviet Union, stay drunk on vodka day and night. Who’s stupid?
Is the Left Insane or Merely Unsane?
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2011/08/is-left-insane-or-merely-unsane.html
<>
One of the main things that divides left and right is our very different conceptions of history — not just this or that fact or interpretation, but rather, the very meaning of History as such.
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2011/08/history-and-how-it-gets-that-way-part.html
God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever--His words, not mine. We have a new convenant of grace for those of us who accept it, but that does not mean God will not still "heal their land" (See 2 Chron. 7:14)
I understand your point about individual salvation. My point is different. It is simply that God most certainly can and does act in favor of nations from time to time, as we have seen throughout history (our own included), and when a nation collectively turns its back on Him, He will turn His face away from that nation.
I believe you are missing my point. I already said God does not save a nation in the same way He saves individuals who give their lives to Jesus.
Whoa! In no way am I talking about collectivism in the communist or socialist realm! Good grief!
Christ fulfilled the old covenant with his sacrifice and established the new convenant based grace. Of course He did!
My only point, which is being misunderstood I think, is that God can and does cause good things to happen for nations that honor Him. Conversely, nations that spit in his face likewise suffer the consequences. This has nothing to do with “collective salvation” at all. It is a simple point.
Perhaps you are right. I think we are in agreement.
“Behind the rational sequence of political and economic cause and effect, hidden spiritual forces are at work which confer on events a wholly new significance. The real meaning of history is something entirely different from that which the human actors in the historical drama themselves intend or believe.”
"I think of Mordecai's words to Esther, "And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" It is only in the crisis point that we see these extraordinary people arise. 'You only get one Moses, one Socrates, one Washington, one Lincoln, one Churchill.' One of my favorite examples is Patton who seemed to be a key that fit only one lock. He does his job and then is gone. "
".....If history were nothing more than the recording and accumulation of facts, it would be of no use to us. Detail alone does not constitute history, any more than randomly played notes constitute harmony and melody. Only by knowing what history is for can we know what is of importance in history. Since history as it happens consists of unique and unrepeatable events, it is unintelligible unless bound into a larger scheme of order."
"...I find it useful to consider history as having a “day” aspect and a “night” aspect.
For example, that ABC movie of several years back, The Path to 9/11, offered us a retrospective glimpse into the night time of history between the two Twin Tower attacks of 1993 and 2001. Although few people noticed at the time, it was during the sleepy Clinton administration that sinister events were incubating in the night time womb of history.
History, according to Tomberg, “is not to be understood as something which plays itself out on one level, but must be comprehended also in its dimension of height and depth.” Furthermore, “the key concepts for understanding the night aspect of history are ‘degeneration’ and ‘regeneration.’”
Degeneration involves a gradual, step-by-step descent from a higher level, while regeneration is the opposite: re-ascent to a higher level.
This is why, both personally and collectively, in the absence of periodic “booster shots” from above ( ), things will simply degenerate below. Our much-rumored fall didn't just happen once upon a timeless, but is repeated by each generation, and even on a moment-by-moment basis. There is no reason to place one's faith in spiritually amputated man, to put it mildly.
These periodic booster shots often enter history like depth charges from above. History records the existence of celestial emissaries charged with a divine mission __to regenerate a spiritually exhausted mankind__. Subtract these relatively few luminaries from history, and it becomes a dark place indeed. You only get one Moses, one Socrates, one Washington, one Lincoln, one Churchill.
As Tomberg puts it, “All movements of a social, political, artistic, intellectual, and religious kind may indeed have different speeds of devolution, but one thing they have in common: if no reinforcing impulse is given after a certain time, they will inevitably exhaust themselves. A thing of motion or or of life becomes a corpse unless 'reawakening impulses' intervene.” .....
....History is a circle, but it is an open circle, or spiral. However, it can only maintain the upward spiral -- i.e., Progress -- if it is specifically oriented to the finality of spiritual ideals that are not located in the field of time. These revivifying impulses from above eventually exhaust themselves unless human beings keep them alive and embody their cosmic role of co-Creator, or bridge between Heaven and Earth. ...."
*****
"All our destinies are interwoven; and until the last of us has lived, the significance of the first cannot finally be clear." --Hans Urs von Balthasar
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