In the wake of yesterday’s attack by militant Muslims on the headquarters and staff of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, we’re being spun and propagandized even more intensely than usual by a world at war with God. We really do need to remember that. As ambassadors for Christ the King and the only agents capable of true, positive change in this culture through the Gospel-fueled Great Commission, we are well served to note, confront, and correct every bit of Christ-dissing and dismissing spin that comes our way.
With that in mind, I’d like to offer up seven points for consideration:
- Islam is evil. Okay, this one is fairly easy and straightforward (see: Call me crazy, but I think this Islam thing just might be evil.), but it does lead us into the less easy to embrace point #2…
. - All unbelief is evil. More specifically in this instance, it’s important to note that the perspective of Charlie Hebdo, the magazine attacked by militant Muslims in Paris yesterday, is evil as well. Once again and predictably so, all secular system supporting media in the West is pitching what just happened in Paris as another round in an ongoing battle between the evil forces of radical religion and the virtuous defenders of things like love, tolerance, kittens, and free speech. We must recognize this as the pure and purposefully inaccurate spin that it is.
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From a Christian perspective, the battle between the likes of Charlie Hebdo and Islam is much more akin to hostilities between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in World War II. Through the chaos and darkness of their rebellion against the one true God that they both hate, adherents of these two anti-Christian worldviews have become locked in battle against one another, but that does not make one of the two worldviews in question good.
. - All Scripture denying idols – including those pitched by America – are evil. Man-centered free speech, freedom, and liberty – specifically the “rights” to blaspheme the name of Christ or worship a false god – are idols that we have been long programmed to adore and defend at the drop of a red, white, and blue Uncle Sam hat, yet these idols stand in stark contradiction to the crystal clear Word of God. We must remember, proclaim, and apply the truth of Scripture right here and now in the middle of this and the many other storms to come. We must identify and tear down these idols, rather than allow their use by the system to prevent us from faithfully serving Christ as He has commanded and equipped us to do.
. - The lazy acceptance of Gnosticism and bad eschatology (“end times” views) in the Church has made the West into hot butter through which the likes of Islam are happy to cut. We need to shed these views and treat the physical world with high regard and calling. The physical world and all therein is very precious to God and ought to be so to Christians. The satanic/Gnostic impulse to create an unbiblical dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual has been a driving theme of the pseudo-Christianity that has been metastasizing in the West for generations now. The equation of the physical world with evil has inspired many professing Christians to lazily cede the physical world – God’s physical world – and practically every realm therein to the enemies of Christ. The Great Commission calls us to behave in precisely the opposite manner.
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. - Worldliness is a spiritual thing. When Scripture condemns “the flesh”, “the ways of the world”, or “worldliness”, it is condemning the immaterial, spiritual nature of things in this fallen world. It is not condemning physicality. Christians need to learn the difference and understand that the Great Commission is calling us to claim every realm of this world right here and now for the name and glory of Christ the King (see: Matthew 28).
. - Appealing to the one true God and His Law as the standards by which we must live is the duty of all true Christians. The forces of worldliness predictably spin any Christian appeal to God as the objective and necessary source of all good things – including economics, law, art, and the like – as proof that what we are experiencing now is a battle between the evil forces of “extreme religion” and the virtuous forces of “free speech” and “liberty”. Sadly, most professing Christians in America already completely embrace this thoroughly satanic worldview. This reality of the professing Christian subculture in the West demonstrates the urgency of our need to now boldly, clearly, and relentlessly confront and correct this Christ-mocking, culture killing lie, as we are commanded and equipped to do through the Great Commission. We cannot allow the world to paint all gods and all religions as equal…no matter how much we have been programmed to do so by the American Corporate State.
. - The Great Commission is our mission; it is the key everything. Everything is purposeful. God owns everything (and everyone). None of this is “just happening”. Nothing (and nobody) has “fallen through the cracks”. What we are seeing unfold around us, including what happened in Paris yesterday, is the consequence of sin – the sin of the professing Church in abandoning the Great Commission and the sin of unrepentant men who have been left to their own devices (all of which are inherently evil by nature) in the wake of the Church’s failure to faithfully confront and correct sin through the Gospel. The only cure – the only solution with any real power to instill true and lasting peace, prosperity, and joy on this earth – is the Gospel-fueled Great Commission of Jesus Christ the reigning King of creation (again, see: Matthew 28). Every bit of secular spin from every system programmed source (including most professing Christians and pastors; and practically all of “conservative”, liberal, and libertarian media) will strive mightily and passionately to insist on any path but submission to the Word of God in practice right here and now. We are to resist, confront, and correct that assertion at every turn.
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I hope and pray that this is helpful. Please pray for those most impacted by recent events in Paris.
Please pray that the Church will repent of her apathy and laziness, and take up the Great Commission to which she has been called by her King.
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© 2015 Scott Alan Buss – All Rights Reserved.
Soli Deo Gloria!