Harbingers

Mark Musser

As Christianity receded behind the wave of naturalism and secularism in western culture, apocalyptic political hubris filled in the vacuum left behind. Ironically enough, this has also led to insoluble political burdens which continue to haunt the modern mindset as ideologues, policy analysts and politicians foist upon unsuspecting populaces the full crushing weight of their apocalyptic concerns.

Such misguided misapplications of the biblical apocalypse helped create the socialistic slaughterhouse that was the 20th century with Marxism, Communism, Fascism, and National Socialism leading the charge - all of whom had strong technocratic inclinations in one form or another.

Contrary to popular opinion, it has never been the responsibility of the Christian to help usher in the apocalypse. The apocalypse will come in due time according to divine determination, "it is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority (Acts 1:7).” In fact, the Bible teaches in many places that the apocalypse will overtake the world like a thief in the night catching everyone off guard (1 Thess 5:1-3; 2 Pet 3:1-10). Christians must be ready at all times since they do not know the exact time of the return of the Lord (1 Thess 5:4-9; 2 Pet 2:19, 3:10-15). In other words, the Christian has not been called to be a social engineer or a community organizer, but to be a missionary of God’s glorious grace to a dying and sinful world. In fact, the best so-called social engineering by the Christian is to be accomplished through prayer and witnessing (1 Tim 2:1-7), which is far more effective in changing people than political solutions will ever be. When done biblically, neither does such prayerful and evangelistic actions violate the image of God inherent in all people, something which most moderns are not restricted by since they believe in evolution.

What’s more is that God purposefully forestalls the advent of the apocalypse precisely because it will be so destructive (Amos 5:18-20; Luke 9:51-56; Matthew 13:24-30).

Gathering up the tares too quickly is a common impulse among people that the Bible has much to say about. When Moses first tried to stop the oppression of the Egyptians, he was forced to flee to Midian for 40 years because he murdered an Egyptian citizen in the process. However, during the Exodus, Moses never had to worry about all the dead Egyptian bodies that piled up behind the Hebrews on their way out of Egypt.

Men, like Moses, must learn the difficult lesson in life that God’s timing is everything.

The great crisis of modern liberal politics is that that Marxists, progressives, socialists, fascists and environmentalis ts are all attempting to bring about a radical transformation of the world through mere politics, racism, political correctness, multiculturalis m and the redistribution of wealth. All the while they make fun of the miraculous that is often found on the pages of the Bible, shockingly, they believe that they can bring about a collectivist utopia upon the earth through sleight of hand processes known as secularization and profanization. Through secularization they have taken apocalyptic notions from the Bible and transposed them into worldly political affairs by gutting the religious element.

Through profanization they have taken such sacred eschatological prophecies and have reduced them to the merely secular or mundane by shucking the religious reverence associated with them. Faith, hope, change, transformation and a "yes we can” attitude are thus removed from their religious foundations, and transposed into empty political rhetoric that captivates the politically naïve and the unwary.

In short, Christian faith in biblical prophecies has been replaced with the cult of political utopia.

The fundamental problem with Marxian eschatology, if not even the entire modern enterprise itself, is that it takes human history too seriously without proper warrant. They have a faith in the future that is inconsistent with the harsh realities, limitations, sufferings and tragedies of life itself. Even though many moderns assume the meaningless, chaotic, and blind forces of biological evolutionary theory, ironically enough, thanks to their Judeo-Christian heritage, they still have faith in the future. Political eschatology has filled the empty cultural void left to the modern world by Darwinian evolution and biology. Indeed, Marxists, socialists, environmentalis ts have purposefully confused history with eschatology in a gigantic attempt to bring about a collectivist social justice in the world this side of the grave. In so doing, however, they have taken human history, one of the most changeable and unreliable of all things, and converted it into a hollow eschatology of political pipe dreams that will never be historically realized.

Even more stunning is that Marxists and millenarianists also wish to make their socialist utopia universal and collectivist, which makes it even more impossible to obtain. Such a political course of action requires massive social engineering that invariably runs roughshod over human dignity and freedom. The communistic/ socialistic cure has very often been worse than the capitalistic disease they are purportedly trying to ameliorate. All the while they continue to promote secular progress, hope and political eschatology, their false utopianism will ultimately lead them to semi-apocalypti c conditions, or perhaps even the apocalypse instead if they keep pushing the envelope as they have been doing now for the last six months (Psalm 2; Daniel 9:24-27; 1 Thess 5:3; Rev 6-19).

The 20th century was a semi-apocalypti c harbinger of bigger apocalyptic things to come. It is not only a history lesson, but a warning.

California Apocalypto

The author of the linked article, Victor Davis Hanson, is not a Christian, but a classicist. Yet, he is a very serious student of history, which is where his conservatism comes from. My own comes from the biblical text, which provides a plethora of historical examples from the both the Old and New Testaments to learn some humility from - not because of anything Rush Limbaugh has ever said ....

Tim's 2C:

When the Liberal movement was born in the Enlightenment it postulated an unchristian thing; it started with the presupposition that Man is inherently good. This flies in the face of the Biblical concept of Original Sin, that Man is fallen and has been since he first sinned. Building on this false premise, Liberalism turned to Leftism, and every step taken has been to further alienate Man from God and the Bible. If Man is inherently good then any "natural" act is as well. So whatever sexual act one feels is "natural" is good. Homosexuality. Adultery. Fornication. And worse things. That destroys family and marriage. Theft is natural and so must be good. That leads to confiscatory government programs designed to steal wealth from those who made it and give it to others who want it and can supply votes. That leads to looting during riots and claims the theft going on is "reparations". That leads to bank robbery and shoplifting and muggings.

That means lies are good if they are in the interests of the "greater cause" and so we have an out-of-control lying news media, political propaganda which is intent on deceiving, etc. Remember when we were told lies were good to protect sexual infidelity when Bill Clinton was lying to the American public (and presumably his wife)?

We have the objectification of human beings, the wholesale slaughter of those objects. Abortion, even partial birth abortion, is a sacrament to the Democrats and the Left.

Everything stems from the mistake of saying their is no original sin. All of the horrors of the twentieth and twenty first centuries stem from the mistake, one that ultimately violates the First Commandment by deifying Man over God. Atheism and agnosticism and neopaganism all stem from this, the arrogance of assuming human reason is our source of strength and that we are all gods unto ourselves. It was the exact same rebellion as Lucifer. Sadly, we are all Lucifer now, or enough of us are that our civilization is peddle to the metal towards the same abyss.

Mr. Musser Replies:

Yes, that is all true, but what is so often overlooked is that they have still used Judeo-Christian principles to get there. It is not the frontal assaults that are so effective, but the twisting of biblical truths to fool so many.

Secularization presumes a religious foundation.

Tim adds:

Absolutely correct Mark. Dinesh D'Souza argued that in his book What's So Great About Christianity and he hit the nail on the head. Christianity is the engine of all civilization since Christ. Liberalism can be seen as a type of Christian heresy which piggybacks on Christian themes and beliefs but twists them to a secular and atheistic purpose.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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