Introduction
There is no doubt that the wheels have fallen off the clown car, and nationally, we are just
skidding door the road. The screech is unbearable, but we smile and call is music, kind of like anything by Cardi B. Many have coined our times as “clown world,” and rightly so…it’s a joke. However, we could just as easily call the times we are living in, Upside Down World.
Where left is left and right is left. Where up is down and down is up. Where men are women and women are men. Where black is…well, always black and white is always evil. Where true is false and false is true. Where straight still seems a little gay at times and gay is always super-gay. Where Joe Biden is President…that’s all I got on that one.
Where college kids need safe spaces and grown-ass men need therapy hamsters. Where
masculinity is inherently toxic and femininity is inherently pure. Where parents can have their kids genitals cut off, but large homeschool families are considered weird. Where a woman who stays home to raise her children is considered a slave, but a woman who submits to her male boss for money is considered liberated. Where public school is considered education, but home school is considered indoctrination.
Where fat is the new healthy, and healthy is still healthy but also inclusively includes grossly obese people as healthy even though they have fully dedicated their lives to not being fat and unhealthy. Where stupid is the new smart, and smart is the new miserable. Where science is the new faith, and facts and evidence are the new heresy.
Where fake news is always fake except for the news that told me about fake news. Where
depravity is the new virtue and virtue is the new depravity. Where the woman of the year is a man, and where the best female athletes are also men. Where trannies who murder children and grandparents are victims because they were provoked to murder children and grandparents because of Christianity and stuff.
Where the church obeys the government to disobey God and disobeys God in order to obey the government. Where Jesus is Lord has become, we have no king but Caesar. Where free speech has become hate speech and hate speech has become unchecked, unrestricted and unhindered.
Where trannies should have unrestricted access to your kids, but parental rights should be defined by the state. And where the victimized, marginalized and oppressed are the ones in the majority and are calling all the shots and control all the institutions.
So yeah, we’re all living in the middle of one great big fat, perverse circus and that’s not
exclusive to June. All of this perversity and insane garage is like one giant bucket full of
diarrhea that just keeps spilling over the sides into every area of our lives, and the church is trying to clean up the mess by putting the mop in the same bucket of shitty water.
Of course, in classic upside world fashion, far too many in the church have tried to be the adult in the room for far too long that they have forgotten what being an adult looks like. Perhaps like dad coming in the room and saying knock it off. But because that hurts others feelings today, said knocking never gets off.
The fact of the matter is, we are very much in this mess because the church has been drinking from the cultural Kool-Aid far more than she cares to admit. The devil is a dealer in ambiguities and we would have it to be so. Not only that, a few things have happened which has produced an illegitimate bastard child within evangelicalism rendering her witness null and void for the sake of evangelism and changing the world and stuff.
These few things are a misunderstanding of what it means to be a Christian martyr, coupled with the incessant desire to be the nicest person in the room at all costs, both operating within the cultural waters of perpetual victimization.
The saint of God should be a knight of valor and honor and bravery, but taking a triple shot of the above concoction has left saints cowardly and weak – we shall call them, “the Christian door-map.” Perhaps we will call this sickness or syndrome leading to the above condition, Christian Stockholm Syndrome.
Christian Stockholm Syndrome
The term, Stockholm syndrome was first used by the media in 1973 after four hostages were taken captive in a bank robbery in Stockholm Sweden. After they were released, the hostages actually defended their captors and would not testify in court against them. So when people use the term Stockholm syndrome they are essentially saying that one begins to identify and sympathize with their captives. This term has also been applied to those who stay in abusive relationships.
Of course, this goes against all sound judgment and reason. Instead of having positive feelings towards your captor or abuser, one should feel disgust coupled with a longing to rectify the wrong done. Some argue that the reason for this, Stockholm syndrome that is, is because it is a coping mechanism to deal with stress, danger and trauma. Reasoning that there must be some reason for the aggressors behavior, perhaps they were provoked, perhaps they are actually the victim, perhaps they are just misunderstood…Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps…
Enter broader evangelicalism. I think there are multiple things happening here all converging in a perfect storm of sympathizing with our oppressors, which is giving more than just a foot hold to the devil in the name of being winsome…because nothing says humility like apologizing for things that you are not responsible for in the least…like Christians apologizing for slavery and racism and stuff. And because we’re super-not-racist, it’s ok when we pander.
First of all, if you’re not a racist, don’t apologize for it, and second, slavery ended a long long time ago…come to think of it, I don’t know any slaves, and have never participated in anything that would remotely perpetuate slavery, other than pay my taxes – which I want reparations for. But, on behalf of Jesus and Christianity and because I have mastered humility, I want you to know how sorry I am for it…but I digress…
One of the things flowing into this great convergence of Christian Stockholm syndrome is the Christian desire to be a martyr without really being a martyr or really knowing what a martyr is. I saw this continually during Obama’s reign of terror. His open and public belittling and mocking of Christianity coupled with policies that were a direct attack on the Christian worldview created persecution in a way that the church had not experienced before in our country (though primarily through the courts).
This wasn’t isolated to the states. Domestic policies have international consequences. Legal persecution, that was designed to destroy political opposition in our country had real life monetary consequences in our country, but emboldened Christ’s enemies abroad which resulted in torture and death for many of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
To which many responded with, “some persecution wouldn’t be bad for the church.” The idea being that, under periods of extreme persecution the church has always been strengthened over the long term and grown under said conditions. This is true historically and praise God for that, however, just spewing out truisms isn’t really helpful nor does it adequately reflect our situation, particularly in the states.
Everyone is generous with other people’s money. Everyone is generous with other people’s time. This is also true regarding other people’s persecution. We feel valiant when someone else suffers for the cause of Christ even though it cost us nothing and even though we’ve contributed to said suffering. This is where the real rub in the road comes. It is not as though Christianity is just now coming to our land. America has been deeply influenced by Christianity, through our laws and customs and God has blessed us as such.
That to say, we are not experiencing persecution because we are witnessing to the cause of Christ, but rather because we are not. We are being persecuted because we have surrendered our witness. To be a martyr is to be a witness. Saints have always been willing to suffer for Christ, and in so doing have born witness to the world that the afflictions of Christ are eclipsed by glory and that the joy received in Christ is far better than the fleeting pleasures of the world.
So then, in sacrificing ground to the enemy that our brothers and sisters have fought and died for, so that more of our brothers and sisters can suffer so that we can sit on our moral high horse and feel virtuous, is witnessing alright. But it is certainly not witnessing to the glory of Christ, but is witnessing to the fact that far too many in the church are a bunch of pansy-ass cowards in love with this present evil age. Even if they call themselves Reformed…perhaps, especially if they call themselves Reformed.
The sad thing is, we are sympathizing with our captives, not because we’ve been taken captive, but rather because we’ve sold ourselves into slavery…we’ve surrendered ourselves in the name of being winsome and because martyrdom is cool and stuff for other people.
So then, there is the Christian doctrine of suffering which is glorious and redemptive through Christ, but is profoundly stupid outside of Christ. It is one thing if someone punches you in the face because they are disgusted by your love for Christ. It is another thing altogether if you run into someone’s fist with your face so that all will know how virtuous you are.
If this mentality of false martyrdom got together and had an illegitimate bastard child with the separatistic pietism marinating in most of our churches like a fresh turd in the sun on a hot summer day it would produce the victim culture that we have today.
However, there is a twist regarding the church, because this is upside down world after all.
Christians are victims like everyone else, but in being victims like everyone else they are actually the oppressors, because of our incessant desire to be martyrs and because a little bit of persecution would do us some good.
The delicious irony is that those who claim that America was never a Christian nation also want you to believe Christians are also single-handedly responsible for everything bad that has ever happened.
Because of the eleventh commandment, “Thou Shalt be Nice”, it would not be winsome to disagree, that Christians, particularly, white Christians…particularly the white male Christians have ruined everything, so we simply agree and apologize.
And because everyone else is a victim and we’ve made them that way by being white and
Christian and stuff, we can correct this most grievous sin by, groveling our way out of it, because we believe in grace so much, we’re going to fix the sins we didn’t commit through atonement by groveling…or maybe by paying penance or something…which the high priests of our age will determine for us…
Like going online in your dunce cap and letting everyone know that you’ve seen the errors of your ways through the gracious illumination of the ministry of truth. You now see that taking it in the can is a viable way of making babies and that men truly can have periods, until they age out of it through mano-pause.
How did any of this happen? There are a multitude of reasons, but one of them is that we’ve begun to sympathize with the enemy, we’ve begun to sympathize with our oppressors. After all, the cucumbers were pretty awesome in Egypt. So instead of acting like valiant and noble sons of daughters of the King of glory, we are acting like a bunch of groveling pansies in order to persuade the enemy that Christ is worthy of worship, after we’ve said we’re responsible for everything that’s bad in the world, because – winsome and stuff.
Christians have repeatedly been force fed a lie that is reenforced by every prevailing cultural institution, like the academy, the media, and the one-party centralist machine that is D.C. that we’ve begun to believe it. And in believing it, we’ve come to sympathize with the enemy and apologize for holding to orthodox Christian doctrines because we’re definitely not racist and we exercise homo and tranny hospitality, which somehow also proves we’re definitely not racist.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Free from the bondage of sin and the lifelong free of death. Free from the slavery of guilt and shame that sinning against others and being sinned against brings. Free from being bullied by a bunch of godless morons who worship the god of chaos and want to make the world after their image and their likeness. Free form believing the lies of the world. Free from condemnation and free from alienation. Through repentance and faith in Christ, we are not oppressors and we are not victims, we are sons and daughters of the king.
As the clowns continue to march on in their stupid little parade, don’t go along with them, don’t cater to them, don’t entertain them, if you love them, mock them. Entertaining evil is evil, and going along with that which is absolutely stupid is stupid. Sympathizing with any of this madness today may be winsome but it’s certainly not for Christ.
Conclusion
C.S. Lewis famously said,
“Our desires are not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.” C.S. Lewis
Such is the case with our current situation. Christianity is in an abusive relationship with culture because we don’t understand what a healthy relationship looks like. Therefore, we are ignorant children playing with mud pies in the slums by trying to fit into something that we have been separated from and compromising and apologizing for it, will only destroy our witness, not help it.
The holiday at sea that has been promised to us is a robust Christian culture, that neither sees itself as victim nor oppressor but free men in Christ sent out tame the wilderness and conquer the world.
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