ISIS and the End of the Age

If You are considering the possibility that we may be living in 'the End Times' - whatever that means to You, then I, the FoX, have something to say.  There have always been at least two different major narratives about How the World Will End presented at any given time.  For the purposes of this essay, I will argue that one leads to hatred and warmongering, while another one seeks reconciliation.

Throughout the Age of the Church (the Day of Christ's Resurrection until Now), Believers have expected the End of the Age.  Usually, regardless of other doctrinal differences between the denominations, Christians have been unified in a hope for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.  "What will be the Time of His Coming?" and "What are the Signs of His Coming?" are questions often debated amongst Christians.  Some teach that a 'Rapture' of believers from the Earth will happen, either before or during the worst of the Great Tribulation.  Others do not teach this.  But in that diversity, the hope of Christ's Return is universally shared among Christians.  I, the FoX, strongly share this Hope.

It should be noted that one other Religion also expects what Christians expect: Muslims are expecting the return of Jesus. Keeping this fact in mind when talking about Christian eschatology can be very interesting, because often times, Christians and Muslims deeply suspect each other as being on the side of Anti-Christ during the Seven Year Tribulation Period.  It is, however, highly unlikely that the Anti-Christ will be universally accepted by either religion and universally rejected by the other.  The Bible declares that "If it were possible, they [false Christs and false prophets] would deceive even the very elect." (Matthew 24:24).  Therefore, whoever the Anti-Christ is or will be, it is much more reasonable to expect that he will have supporters and detractors from both religions.  We must be far wiser than this tribal thinking if we are to discern the times we are living in. 

 A good resource is the site MuslimsForJesus.org, which indexes many Islamic blogs specifically relating to the return of Jesus Christ.  Browsing through it can give unfamiliar Christians a glance at just how Muslims relate to Jesus Christ.  Despite a refusal to share the Christian conviction that Jesus Christ is One with God the Father, Muslims do place a great deal of respect upon the figure of Jesus.  They believe that he was a prophet of God, one of 124,000 throughout history beginning with Adam and ending with Muhammad.  Among the Islamic prophets, however, Muhammad is unique for being the final prophet, and Jesus is unique for being the Messiah.  Islam teaches that Jesus is the Messiah, meaning the rightful leader of the 'Ummah' or community of Israel.   Islam teaches that the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, but promotes the idea that when Jesus returns, the Jews will embrace him.

Right now across the Middle East and in North Africa, Christians are being slaughtered by ISIS.  It is not the first or the only time, by a long shot, that Islamist groups have terrorized Christians, but it is certainly the most brutal contemporary example.  ISIS beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians on the beaches of Tripoli, Libya earlier this month and just a few days ago, the same group captured 90 Assyrian Christians whom they likely intend to execute.  The way that I view the eschaton, Jesus' return could happen at any time, and then again, it could happen in another thousand years.  It is important to remember that Jesus' original twelve disciples fully expected Jesus to return in their own lifetime, and every faithful Christian has thought the same ever since.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, the eschaton is suspended until God alone decides that the End has come.

Because the End could come at any time, there are always actors in the World who are legitimately on the side of an apocalyptic, demonic Evil.   I, the FoX, am betting that You agree with me, and that it is plain to see this spirit at work in ISIS.  On Facebook I have noted comments in which people doubt the humanity of ISIS militants.  The fact that they can smile as they kill is cited as demonic.  I have no doubt that when such extreme acts of violence are committed, they open up the hearts of the killers to a host of demonic influence and activity.  I have no doubt that ISIS militants have become dehumanized through their own activities and are now firmly in Satan's intense psychological and spiritual grip.  Islam has a teaching that at the End Times, there will be many false Muslims in the World, and that inexplicably they will all be one day turned into apes.  But I decry the response of some Americanized Christians, who become so indignant against the ISIS militants that they begin spewing murderous or jingoist rhetoric.  The idea that 'Obama should go in and stop them' or that it is shameful if he does not is the same kind of thinking which enabled a corrupt war for profit to be started under our noses during the Bush era.  "When all you've got is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail,"so the saying goes.  Americans tend to think every problem requires a military response.

Be mindful of that.  It was not so long ago (2013) that Obama himself tried to sell us on a war with Syria, not fighting ISIS, but fighting alongside them against the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  There's an anti-Christ for you, by the way: well at the very least, a war criminal.  Bashar al-Assad had imprisoned nearly 200,000 people for opposing his rule and by some accounts, was demanding to be worshiped as a god.  He responded to protest against his regime during the Arab Spring with strikes on civilians.  President Barack Obama tried to highlight his crimes and justify strikes against Syria in a message to the American people in 2013.  But the American people responded resoundingly that they did not want to get into another war.  Pope Francis called on Christians around the world to pray and fast for peace.  Millions did.  And we did not go to war with Assad.  But about a year later, we started really fighting alongside him against ISIS, an even worse threat.  I detect in the recurring temptations of America to war, something that is also demonic.  Because repeatedly, the Americanized Christian response to sensitive and ancient hostilities brewing in the lands of the Bible is to try and sort it out with bombs and guns.  Repeatedly, this response has proven to not be the right one.

My own falling out of line with Evangelical Christianity happened at around the time that Bush authorized U.S. troops to invade Iraq in 2003.  Because it was obvious to me that nothing linked the nation of Iraq to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - if anything we should have been going to war with Saudi Arabia since most of the hijackers that day were Saudi - I protested the War.  Within my Evangelical circle of friends, I was repeatedly told that this War against Iraq had something to do with the End Times and that as a Christian I should support the President who was standing up to those evil Muslims.  Finer points about Middle Eastern politics were ignored, let alone finer points about Christian and Islamic eschatology.  Fast forward a few years, and it is now widely accepted that the Iraq War had nothing to do with the End Times or even with stopping terrorism.  The Iraq we "liberated" from Saddam is now a failed state and no weapons of destruction were ever found.  The Iraq War only fueled terrorism.  But now Americanized Christianity wants to charge off into the Middle East again.

If these are indeed the End Times, (and I believe that they are), I think we should start to long for the things Christ himself would long for. We should want there to be peace and justice in the Middle East, and we should respond with prayer for the nations of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia.  I believe that if we are praying heartfully for these nations we will be less interested in taking the American War Machine to each and every one of them.  We should pray for the conversion of militants.  ISIS members are not so dehumanized that we cannot pray for their conversion.   The Apostle Paul started off as an anti-Christian militant.  He was converted by the death of a martyr.  "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church," Tertullian said.  So although the number of the slain witnesses for Jesus continues to fill up under Heaven's altar each passing day, what this should mean to us in safe, comfortable America is not that it is time to go to War, but that it is time to watchfully and lovingly pray.   There can be no substitute for loving our enemies and praying for them daily.  So I the FoX am calling on You to turn from warmongering and turn to Love through Prayer.
-KiJjiT

Prayer for Wisdom in 2015

This is my Prayer, uttered while a-wading in The River of January, 2015.

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding."
 - Proverbs 4:7

It is Wisdom that I covet most.
I have a Wise Reason for Wishing Wisdom
 into the World, and into the Year,
For I am myself a Fool,
and it is Fools alone who have Wisdom.
And I am set out to gain Wisdom.
I ween that from Wisdom,
 all lesser Wishes follow.
King Solomon himself
 was given, you'll recall,
besides Wisdom,
Long Life and Honor:
and Health, and Fame,
and Fortune.
Renown!
May all these Gifts B.E. for Y.O.U.
a Blessing Seized
In the coming Year.
But Most Importantly,
Get Understanding.

Environmental Understanding.   I wish to know the fate of ......

Keystone XL!  Our irresponssible Congresspersons have passed this climate-killin', oil-spillin' Pipedream using ample muscle from both parties, because of Corporate money and media manipulation, despite widespread opposition to the project.   POTUS has promised to veto this Pipedream, and just a few nights ago badmouthed it in the State of the Union address.  That is Good News!  And I pray that President Barack Obama fulfills that promise.  And yet I know that even when he does, we will still have to fight with an enormous Beast on the issue.

Social Understanding.  I need to know what is happening in...

the whole wide World!     In Syria, Palestine, Ukraine, Iraq, China, North Korea, Lebanon, France, Japan, India, Greece, Turkey, Nigeria, Mexico, and yes, in the United States.  What is going on with this Human Suffering?  I can see indeed that these are Troublous Times.  I Ask, & Ttrust God to Deliver all prisoners, all wartorn, all captured, all maimed, all radiated, all tortured, all enslaved, all embittered, all indigent, all cast out, all dispossessed, all oppressed, all kidnaped, all raped, all murdered, all exploited, all deforested, all polluted.   These are the Tribulations of the World, and I feel them with my Family.

Spiritual Understanding.  I pray to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

On Earth, we are all on Holy Ground.  The Earth is the Lord's, and it will be His Justice that outs in the End. In this Time we're living through, all is Uncertain, and none are immune to the coming of Tribulation.  Storm Clouds are Gathering, indeed, as the YouTube user stormcloudsgathering has been ably pointing out.  May the Lord Deliver us from that Fate!  May He help us to Alter an inhumane course in the curve of History.  Fate & Destiny BOTH exist, I believe, and this is illustrated by the Scriptural paradox found in these verses:             "My times are in your hands," (Psalm 31:15)
 and
             "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

In Prayer, I believe we can successfully calls on God, who holds Time, to alter the very flow of Events unfolding. No bad things are inevitable.  The World doesn't have to End at all.

  "Come quickly, Lord Jesus" is not, I don't think, a prayer for Rapture or Escape.  It is a plea for the Second Coming!  It is a plea that wrongs may be righted.  It is not a prayer that Christians pray hoping to escape the Earth, but one they pray on behalf of the Earth and all its Souls, for Deliverance, Power, Glory, Justice, Equity, Redemption.... even Resurrection.

Personal Understanding.  I would like to know how I may be of the best use.

No one Person can do everything which pulls upon them to do.  My first estate is to love and care and teach my Children, and to Shine with my Wife.  I pray to honor my Parents also.  To uplift my Brothers.  I pray to stand up as a Man against injustice in the World.  To make a difference in the World, to provoke thought, to respond carefully, to be open, involved, accessible.  I pray to be useful and humble, I pray that I may be quick to offer succor when I am able to offer it.   I pray that I may be able to offer it.  I pray to be energetic, attentive, active and creative.  And I do solemnly swear that I need the Lord's Help.  I Need the Help of the Lord, I Need the Help of the Lord... I have made this my constant prayer, and I must keep it...
because "Without me it is certain that you can do nothing." is what I'm hearing the Lord reply.

Wisdom is the Principal Thing.

And you know, another very Bold, Clever, Fearless Of X creature is the F.O.X.!  

So in my Environmental, Social, Spiritual, adn Personal Understandings I will continue to learn from my

T.O.T.E.M.

Teacher Of True Earth Magic

which is the spirit of the FoX in the Garden of Eden.

Mayhaps a FoX might steal in unawares, into the chancels of the Elite, and play some Trick upon them.  

For you must know that the heart of a FoX is true.  And prayer, I believe, of a Man, avails much.

-KiJjiT

You Can't Stop God from Reconciling to Anything (An Open Letter to Greta Christina)

One thing saddens me, and it is that we (Believers & Atheists) do not see each other's points-of-view very clearly.  We've been arguing for and against the existence of God in our private worlds for a long time now, largely preaching to our own respective choirs. When we actually engage each other the tone is off.  I do not know what it is.  Probably a lot of Believers are trying to convert You.  Probably some Atheists are, too.  But I do want to stand for at least one position: our Conversation here is Interesting, and can be productive.   Quite independently of whether or not you think the question leads to one conclusion or the other, just in the chat there is substance.   Eventually, if we approach this conversation in the right spirit we could stand to learn a lot about ourselves as Humans.  We are all, after all, Humans.  And it is interesting that we are having an ages-long debate about God's existence.   Would prove to be a pretty epic piece of the story of humanity, just that we had debated this concept at all -- either way.

I like hearing about Faith vs. Atheism.  I enjoy the back-and-forth.  What I don't enjoy is that tone.  When one side just assumes that everything which can be said, has been said, and everyone else needs to accept defeat -- it just seems like a counterproductive attitude to bring into the debate.  Greta Cristina, in this article, is ready for the question to be decided, based on what I think is a very slim approximation of her opponent's side.   She does an excellent job pointing out that Nature is full of deformities, full of cruel riddles and bizarrely designed (if designed) body parts.  But she makes a quite common mistake of assuming that opponents cannot possibly have known about this, or considered it, and that therefore there is no theology to answer it.  I was once confronted on an online forum with a similar question - if God exists, why anencephaly? It is a heart-wrenching question, on the face of it; there are many questions like it in theological studies, and always these questions provoke our sense of justice about suffering.   Surely no good, omnipotent God would allow x, y, and z to happen!  But you see, by no means is this where Christian argument has ceased its questioning.   This is not an end-point, but a beginning point, where a whole, rich world of the philosophy of suffering begins.  It is a felt philosophy, and has provoked many great books, one of which, that I dearly love to recommend, is A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken.

In the article I just linked to you from Greta Cristina, she has listed "4 Reasons that 'God Made Evolution Happen' makes no sense."  I think I'll take them one at a time, so everybody might want to read her original post too.  Ms. Cristina, I'll now switch to direct address format.  I am pleased by the way to make your acquaintance.  Thanks for making me think and write!  Let's begin.

1. "But in evolution, there is no direction."

     Ah but, might I suggest, in evolution, there is connection.   An overwhelmingly interconnected, biological and chemical mess (I'm giving you that word, there mess).  With all the same rush and reverence you might experience if you fell down Alice's rabbit hole, try to look at Nature and deny that the Connection itself is whole and sublime, and something higher than direction itself.  God is in the wiring, you see.  "Evolution is all about the immediate present and the very near future," I get it.  Evolution is all about The Now, in other words.  In deeper Christian philosophy, I would say that is also where God is said to be located.  Random Chaos?  Hey that's right up His alley!  One hundred thousand quirks? Yeah, that sounds like His address.

2.  "There's not a scrap of evidence for it."

    You see, this is what I was talking about earlier.  "Without dying in childbirth?"  No, God has not obligated himself to such parameters.  If you imagine the Web of Life itself, that bio-chemical yet mystical interconnectedness, you will understand that the concerns of a single individual for more or less pain, more or less illness, more or less misfortune, are by no means the deciding factors in "the plan of God" if you can conceive of such a thing existing.  For the Web of Life itself is quite lively, and pulsating, and even when the Earth experiences a major extinction event (like it may do soon), life Itself goes on, and on, and on.  And I daresay when the Earth herself dies Life may still yet go on.  Life Itself, you see, according to the best definitions, is precisely what exists as the core of God.  God is the sentience and interconnectedness of all Life.  I don't have to be significant to the plan of the Universe for God to exist.  In fact, its probably better if I see myself as profoundly insignificant. Rather than looking for a God who behaves as a genie, look for a God with an indomitable will and a profound imagination and a real zest for doing the job erratically and eccentrically, and there's evidence a-plenty.

   I mean, the Universe itself doesn't actually exist you know.

3.  The Evidence Against

     Yes, the vagus nerve likes to take its time and so does the vas deferens, especially if you are a giraffe.  I like that bit, but half-assed? You have to admit its all interesting, at least.  And we're having this conversation spanning centuries about whether or not God did it.  Your criteria was, "God is supposed to care" if an individual is comfortable or happy.  Well no, technically God is not supposed to do anything.  Stop telling God what to do!  I am sorry it is all a bit gory and grotesque at times but as Life continues to go onward and as we are all here for one another knowing that we all are going to die, and some of us suffer, it helps to reach out sometimes, to the Supreme Intelligence which some of us very much feel in the Connection of Everything.  And does He answer?  Well, see, conditions for Life sure could be a lot worse.  I am grateful that they are not.   I am grateful for all the persons and places I love, and for their health, and I hope it all continues.   My faith is, by and large, concerned with the immediate present and the very near future.  Somewhere in the core of me is some DNA which is highly connected to all the other carbon in the Universe, and it is hopefully making split-second decisions to benefit 'me' as my mysterious 'consciousness' experiences myself.  To quote Kevin Flynn, "Bio-digital jazz, man."  Or maybe that's all scientific language for the justification for prayer.  Have you conceived of prayer as participation with God rather than petitioning from God?  That would go with equating God less with direction and more with connection. What if words themselves were powerful?  What if intents were even more so?  What if the Universe could be shown to be malleable in the face of your psychic involvement?  The only laboratory in which God has ever consented to prove Himself is in the laboratory of the Human Heart.  But billions have found it proved there. Some have not, I know.   Most of the New Atheists used to be Christians, and prominent in their churches.  But what are the constants in a faith experiment?  For many people, there are more constants in a faith experiment than there are constants in life.  A bad church can be a pretty bad detriment to a faith experiment, and I think most Christians today acknowledge that there are a lot of bad churches.  To really begin a fresh look at the subject with the humble and open heart which is required, my best recommendation is a long time spent alone, in Nature, in silence.  This should truly be a central experience for having these sorts of discussions go a step further.

4.  Now the real meat.  Is God brutal?  Calloused? Malignant?  Is that who I am arguing for?  No, not at all, God does care, but I wish you would allow yourself the bigger picture.  Religion teaches that there is a body and there is a physical world, and that there is suffering a-plenty, but that the lives we live out here in pain and misfortune are reversed hereafter.  Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man shows how this was reversed for the case of one rich man and one poor man.   Lazarus lived his life in squalor and neglect outside the rich man's house.  In the afterlife it was the rich man who desperately craved charity and respite while Lazarus had it all.  And if you're reeling right now because I just tried to argue that God is not brutal by bringing up the possibility of Hell, then you're not paying close enough attention.  The philosophy of hell is also a nice, long rabbit hole to go down sometime when you feel like doing theology, but it requires a lot of heart.  I largely see Hell not as something God created and throws us into to punish us, but as something that God is swallowing up and redeeming, barring entry to, ransoming from and emptying and rescuing us from.  What I am trying to do is give you the bigger picture.   There would also be Heaven to discuss, for example.   Or the possibility of multiple incarnations.  Does it all even out in the end?  Will we look back and say, "That was all worth it?"  Well, isn't that where Faith comes in?  Because we don't know, do we?  I don't, and neither do you.  Judgment Day is kind of like the pair of dice we are all waiting to see what number it lands on.

I am sorry that for you religion is so divorced from reality.   But I sincerely suggest to you, that you have not yet plumbed religion's depths.  Or, for that matter, reality's.  And more research is necessary, so let's not can the debate just yet.

Sincerely,
KiJjiT the FoX

P.S.: In case you didn't like my answer, here's a much better one.

Reach the Police

The latter half of 2014 has been the era of Police Brutality.  Several cases have made national headlines, including the killing of Eric Garner on July 17th, the killing of Michael Brown on August 9th, and the killing of Tamir Rice (12 years old) on November 22nd.  In addition to these most well known killings, there is also the Nov. 2nd death of Sheneque Proctor, a young mother who was in good health but died with no official explanation after reportedly calling her mother and reporting that the officers had been handling her roughly.  On November 25th, Dornella Conner, a pregnant woman who was not part of the protests in Ferguson, was nevertheless shot by an officer's beanbag round, and lost her eye.

There is a lot to be angry about in all of this.  When we consider that police officers are also getting away with these and similar offenses seemingly all the time, the sense of rage only increases.  The mantra of the police force -- "to serve and protect" -- rings increasingly hollow.  As Andrew Napolitano has said, "The definition of a police state is when the government's prime concern is for its own safety, not for the lives, liberty, and property of the people it has sworn to protect."  Nowhere has this been more apparent than in Ferguson, where the police response to protests about the Michael Brown killing and the subsequent grand jury decision have included the use of tear gas, which is banned by the Geneva Convention for use in warfare.  An over-militarized and over-zealous police force is quite obviously no longer protecting and serving "We the People."  This should raise the question, who then, are they protecting and serving? While "they" is by no means an all-inclusive term for every police precinct in the nation (Nashville's police behaved quite admirably when their citizens protested the Michael Brown verdict), it can still nevertheless be said that "they" seem more and more to be behaving like a cabal, and less and less like public servants.

As I have taken to my Facebook page to share my own frustrations about the police, I have been met by a lot of support from others who are similarly outraged.  I also ran into a great deal of opposition, which went far beyond the public comments and escalated into private messages and then harassing phone calls (not only to myself but to members of my family) from individuals who were not police officers but were closely and personally connected to police officers.  The whole mess frankly just stinks to high heaven.

But I would like to say, I disagree with this chaos.  Let's be done with the noise now.   Beware the narrative of "Us vs. Them."  Because the truth is, that if we who are the champions of freedom and peace, justice, and transparent government, could make our voices heard by the officers themselves, and convert the very police to our principles, then we could be well night unstoppable when it comes to turning this country around.  The uncanny timing of all these highly publicized killings, so close to one another, also makes me wonder if something grander and more sinister is behind it.   Perhaps some entity wants the protest movement to come to hate the police -- because the alternative, that we respond with love and win them over, would be precisely the missing ingredient in the formula for truly wide spread Change.

I have had many discussions to this effect over social media, about what could really change the world.  By far the most interesting suggestion has been that we need to consciously reach out to police and the military.  AFTER ALL, do they not work for We The People?  Do we not elect the sheriffs, impact the laws, help set the salaries?  By fully and strongly asserting ourselves democratically, perhaps we could finally reign in the police brutality by reminding some of "them" that we in fact, DO hold the strings, and besides that, we share a common humanity.  Police officers of the world, you do not have to be beholden any longer to corporations and crony government.  Open YOUR eyes, recognize the family you are among, and join the protests. 

Peace this Side of Hell

"I'm feeling the Urge to start Everything Over," thought God.
And He scratched the Ground.
The Earth was created from distant Stars,
but for these very last drops of Clay,
He bent His Knees and employed His Fingers.
"I love how fallible You are," He whispered, as He worked it.
Then He looked into History, into faraway places.
Inside was a thoughtful pause.
How many untold stories did the Holy Spirit foreknow in that instant?
Every deed of love and every idle word.
The times of Peace and the times of Tribulation.
The preservative power of Day,
and,
tick tick tick,
the vultures descending.
The betrayal, the arrest, the trial.
His Fingers quivered.
Did He dare to go on?
Just then the Spirits of Matriarchs and Patriarchs called out to Him through Time.
Such extraordinary harmonies!
They sacrificed their fullness,
But they could even escape Hell.
The smile of a child.
The song of a bride.
By Saturn!  There was dancing.
There were hayrides, there was laughter.
The beautiful youths wet in the hot Summer.
He saw it all, from the very first Snake
to the Chemical Herbicides.
"My Sheep have gone astray," He said.
But the Earth conceals a Trap of the Lord,
To bring us back to the Keeper of the Sky.
He saw the Order of Julian Assange.
He saw a Chinese billionaire,
rich with things that won't be useful in Hell.
But some things...

Quite nervous, the Keeper of Heaven fused His Knees
with the mud, like a Spouse.

"My feet will love You in the Earth," Adam's soul called out.
"There will be Peace this side of Hell."

And God heard the howl for courage and justice, arising in the streets of Rio and Athens.
Anti-corporate, pro-democracy movements, shaking the Earth.
He heard the cries of the Poor and Humble.
He saw the Redemption in the dirt.
"I love watching over You," He said.
"And I will Rescue You, to run wild in Eden,
To walk the long way down,
Until the very last day of Creation."
Then God - His Name is very rare and Amazing -
Hid Himself in Everything,
Even deeply inside of Adam,
And kissed him.
And he came to Life.

Repentance Prayer

Lord, I need more of You in my Life.
I need the help of the Lord.
I need Jesus to be on my side.
Or rather, put me on Your Side.

Preserve me from Traps.
Preserve me from Errors.
I need Your Guidance!
I need Your Mercy!
I have transgressed wickedly and I require Strength.
I cannot get all of my work done.
I need Help, and I need Mercy, for not being all I am meant to be.

Lord please bless my Family.  Thank You for them!
Make me capable to lead and Love them.
Lead me!  Love me!  
Thank You for all I have.
Thank You for what I have been given
And Thank You SO MUCH for Your Every Generous Gift.
Why have You given it all to me?
I am not worthy.
But preserve it for me.
Keep me lowly,
Make me Holy,
Write my Story,
Raise my Family.
Work my job, and heal my Lands.
Do my work for me.
I am lost in You,
Let Me Thru,
Let Me Thru,
I am used to You.

I am used by You.
And I, too, use You.

Forgive me all my usurpations.
My hedony, my hubris.
Lord I seem useless.
But oh what a journey You have placed me upon!
Do not let my self betray it, I pray it;
Do not let myself betray it.

A record of my thoughts has been kept.
And though I know you know,
And I know You planned it,
I can't stand it.
Give me a fresh Mind all over again.
-KiJjiT

Devil Worship

 

In case you had not heard, the Temple of Satan is about to place a 'Satanic Monument' on the grounds of the Oklahoma State House.   Here is what it is supposed to look like:

According to the article linked to above, When the monument is finished, the Baphomet will rest on the block beneath the inverted pentagram. His lap will serve as a seat for children.
You may ask why this is happening.  The answer is because of conservative Christian stupidity.  For years, the Christian Right has failed to comprehend what "separation of Church and State" means.  Attempts to Christianize America's public space with crosses, nativity scenes, and Ten Commandments displays have been the bread and butter of conservative politicians and pundits since 1962.  In fact, the 'Satanic Monument' is a direct response to the erection -- not in 1950, but in 2012 -- of a Ten Commandments display which is also outside of the Oklahoma State House.  The Satanic Temple will place their monument directly next to the Christian one. 
In a democratic, pluralistic society, where Congress is not supposed to have respect to establishments of religion, it should be unthinkable for religious displays to proliferate in public space.  Although each citizen should be free to practice their religion in their own way, as they see fit, the government should strive for a neutral secularism in all of its affairs.  The culture of our nation should welcome all faiths equally and never appear to favor one over the other.

But loopholes have been found in this doctrine.  In Oklahoma, the Ten Commandments display went up on public space because a wealthy state representative build it with his own money and donated it to the State.  It seems that it never occurred to him that other religious people, from quite different persuasions, might also have the means and the desire to promote their peculiar ideologies: which of course is precisely the problem.

So now we are going to have an altar to Satan outside one of our nation's State Houses.  And that is not all: the Satanic Temple is prepared to fight this same religious turf war anywhere in the United States where Christian symbols are displayed on public land.  The Constitution is on their side.  The law is on their side.  Public opinion is even on their side.  This Satanic Monument has been entirely crowdfunded.

The stupidity of conservative, ethnocentric, nationalistic Christians has done us in. Always, they insist on their own narrow views!  They are deluded to think they can force the United States of America to be an officially Christian nation. They are perpetuating an undemocratic Christian privilege. They are being consummately unChristlike.  And it is because they have prostituted the faith of Jesus to the point of becoming religious bullies, that the door is now opened for Satan to have himself altars built all across America.

My friends, the ends do not justify the means.  I am all for pluralism, and all for democracy.  But it sickens me beyond words to know that altars to Satan are soon to be built in public spaces.  I lay the blame squarely upon every Christian who has ever parroted such slogans as "Put prayer back in schools!" or "We need God in America again!"  Congratulations, church of the Right: by crusading and browbeating people with your faith, rather than living your faith attractively, gracefully, and with love, you gave Satan the toehold he was looking for. 

 

 

In the ancient world, altars to the gods of a city-state were always in public spaces.  Whichever gods or goddesses were represented in the streets and law-houses were the ones thought to preside over that city-state.  So in a mystical way, giving Satan a monument outside of a state house does, in fact, give Satan influence.  Don't think it doesn't.

 

The Satanic Temple itself is not made up of people who believe in a supernatural being called Satan.  In interviews, the leader of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, has made that quite clear.  He says that they embrace "an atheistic philosophical framework that views “Satan” as a metaphorical construct by which we contextualize our works." But if you are breathing a sigh of relief at that statement, you shouldn't.  This "atheistic philosophical framework" is every bit as sinister, and every bit as much a problem as actual Devil worship.  It is rooted in the works of Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible, as well as in the works of Ayn Rand, and in the work of Ragnar Redbeard, Might Is Right.

 

 

In a now famous interview conducted in 1989 by the televangelist Bob Larson, the High Priest (Nicholas Schreck) and High Priestess (Zeena LaVey) of the Church of Satan laid out the philosophy of LaVeyan Satanism bluntly.  In essence Satanism is social Darwinism.  Schreck praised Adolph Hitler as "an excellent black magician" in that interview.  He stated that he would have no feelings of compassion for starving people in Africa or suffering people in war-torn regions.  He believed only in the supremacy of the individual.  He advocated evoking Satan within so that the Satanist's will was dominant over all others.  He told the interviewer that he had no interest in converting people to Satanism however because, frankly, the Church of Satan "doesn't want the 'least of these,'.  "You keep them," he said.  "We are for the elite, we are for the 1%."

 

 

Lest there be any doubt, the Church of Satan's Web site has an article called "Satanism and Objectivism" which reiterates: "

The Satanic view sees as ethical the reality of domination of the weak by the strong." 

Also ethical in the Satanic view is "

the use of force to cause others to submit to the will of the stronger or cleverer individual" (italics mine). 

 

“Satanism has far more in common with Objectivism than with any other religion or philosophy," the Church of Satan's Web site goes on to say. "Objectivists endorse reason, selfishness, greed and atheism. Objectivism sees Christianity, Islam and Judaism as anti-human and evil. The writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring and powerful.”

"Satanism is a “brutal” as well as a selfish philosophy," the Web site admits.  "We do not hold, as do the Objectivists that the universe is “benevolent.” Satanists view the world as neutral, beyond the concepts of benevolent or treacherous, good or evil. Satanism enables the Satanist to codify his life beyond the ethical and metaphysical straightjacket which Objectivism unfortunately offers.”

So let me get this straight: Satanism is a religion for the 1% which teaches that there is no ethical or moral reason to behave with compassion toward your fellow man?  And this is a philosophy which we are comfortable commemorating outside a State House in a nation which is supposed to be democratic?  It seems to me that by straining at a gnat, we have swallowed a camel.  Many liberals are tickled to death that this Satanic Monument is going up because they want to sock it to the conservative Christians.  And yet the philosophy of Satanism is antithetical to democratic views.  It is straight from the devil himself!  The ends do not justify the means here.  We have been deceived by the Father of Lies.  The entire Church and State debate has been a ruse to distract Christians and to channel our energies away from doing good.  All the while our own actions as the body of Christ have served only to pave the way for Satanic altars to be built.  This is a black magic conspiracy to win the Dark Lord an advantage.

Lest I be accused of unfairly criticizing the Satanic Temple, I do need to add that the Satanic Temple is a different institution than the Church of Satan discussed above.  In fact, Lucien Greaves has suggested that he wants to update LaVey's philosophy.  "Social Darwinism, interpreted in brutal, strictly self-interested terms, is counter-productive," he says.  "We do better when we work in groups, where altruism and compassion are rewarded..."   This is a nod toward the common values of our society, and it makes for good PR.   "That said, however," he continues, "I believe in a system that runs meritocratically."   He goes on to say that revenge is a natural impulse and should be the basis of our justice system. 

The fact remains that the Satanic Temple is connected ideologically to the Church of Satan, to Ayn Rand, to Social Darwinism, and via Social Darwinism to Adolph Hitler, to black magic, and yes, I believe, to Satan himself.  Lucien Greaves of the Satanic Temple was asked to write an introduction to the book Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard (and also to illustrate it), which was one of Anton LaVey's favorite books and which is heavily borrowed from in The Satanic Bible. The person who asked him to write that introduction was Shane Bugbee, a High Priest in the Church of Satan, himself appointed by Anton LaVey.  The Satanic Temple appears friendlier and worldlier.  It has "renounced supernaturalism," but then again, simply watching the 1989 interview with Nicholas Schreck and Zeena LaVey will show you that the Church of Satan back then was also willing to consider Satan an "archetype" rather than a literal being.  It matters very little whether they consider Satan to be an actual being or not.  If they are giving him honor and if they are promoting that philosophy of selfishness, brutality, and greed, they are in fact worshiping the Devil.

So where do we go from here?  It seems there is little to be done to prevent the Satanic altars from being built across America now.  God help us!  Unchristlike Christians have done it to themselves, have brought the demonic influence down upon us.  I believe we can expect the Prince of the Power of the Air to use his newfound influence to spawn even more destructive, oligarchic, plutocratic policies than before.  I suspect somewhere amongst the 1%, the elite for whom the Satanist religion was founded (according to Nicholas Schreck), there is a black magician rejoicing that his Dark Master has found a backdoor loophole way of erecting his monuments on public lawns.  I suspect that the fight for a peaceful, more humane world has transcended the political and social arenas now and will need to be fought on a supernatural plane.  YES, I believe in the supernatural and in a literal devil, and in angels and demons and magic.  YES, there is more here than meets the eye.  We have a hell of a fight on our hands now. 

"We staged a rally in support of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s passage of Senate Bill 98, a bill that essentially allowed for prayer in school," said Lucien Greaves. "While many groups were upset and offended that Scott was advancing a conservative Christian agenda, we staged a Satanic rally thanking Rick Scott for endorsing a bill that allowed Satanism in schools, ensuring that children who might otherwise never learn of the Satanic creed could be exposed to it in the classroom."

My one Prayer is that, as children are now increasingly going to be exposed to the Satanic creed, they will also be exposed to a genuine display of Christianity.  One which does not bully or insist on its own views, one which "does not behave itself unseemly," does not "seek its own advantage," is not proud or puffed up, which is not provoked and does not always think evil of others (in case you missed it these are descriptions of how Christians should love according to 1 Corinthians 13).  I pray that in an America which is about to become increasingly more Satanic, the philosophy of kindness, benevolence, charity and compassion will also find a strong voice somehow.