063 Wonderful Counselor

What many people don't know about the Bible is that it contains hundreds of ancient prophecies, written hundreds of years before they were being fulfilled. Of course, there are those who claim that the entire Bible is a fraud, just like they would have us believe that God is an invention of man, instead of the other way around, but I covered that earlier.
One of the ancient prophecies I'm referring to, is the one by the prophet Isaiah from around 700 B.C., which we also included in our Christmas card, shown in our Christmas post below:
"For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).
In this, one of the most beautiful prophecies about Jesus' birth, Isaiah describes a child that would be born, although at the same time it would be "The mighty God, The everlasting Father," etc.
Most Christians refer to Jesus also as "Wonderful," and some, thankfully, still consider Him the Prince of Peace (not the champion of warmongers), but the one thing I'm particularly thankful for this morning, which unfortunately is the one attribute that is not so avidly recognized by most of His believers, is that Jesus is also the most perfect Counselor one could possibly have.
I personally love communicating. Especially about spiritual and heavenly things. And the neat thing is, so does the Lord. But it seems that in most cases, He needs to trick us into accepting, receiving, or even becoming aware of most of His attempted communications with us.
Still, the majority of believers consider prayer to be their monologue directed at God. "After all," they figure, "He said His piece, and whatever He had to say, in the Bible." And then He quit talking ever since...

A mute God, instead of a Counselor. There are even some catholics who are smarter than that. One of them is Richard Rohr, the Franciscan who puts it so wonderfully in his book "Radical Grace:" "Unless we can presume that the Lord is speaking right now, how can we believer that He ever spoke? To have an attitude of faith is to hear the Lord speaking everywhere and all the time, in the concrete and ordinary circumstances of our lives."

There are many Promises in the Bible in which God tells us that He would counsel us, if we care to listen. God's phone number, Jeremiah 33:3, for instance, says, "Call unto Me, and I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."
In the Psalms He promises, "I will guide the with Mine Eye," or elsewhere, "thou shalt hear a word behind thee, saying, 'This is the way...'" or "Knock and it shall be opened unto you," "Acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths."
In other words, if you have a little time on hand, but no cash to spend on therapists or counselors who will "lead thee in the paths" of Nietzsche and Freud, try the best Counselor of all times. In fact, He's so good at it, advertisement for His services was already written 700 years before He was born.
Try a little hearing from Heaven, and see what it can do for you!

Happy Christmas to Y'all!

Happy Birthday, Wonderful Counselor!

062 Inconvenient Truths

Last night, under the motto, "better late than never," we watched Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." A bit late, since I have developed a natural distrust toward politicians in general, but during the course of the film I couldn't help but imagining what a different place this world might be right now, if Al Gore would have won the presidential elections in 2000...
Being a creationist, it may sound odd for me to say that I would have preferred a president who believes in Evolution to one who even passed a bill in favor of creationism in parts of his country, but I kept saying, "This man is intelligent." I mean, he's actually capable of formulating entire grammatically correct phrases in a row without problems. Not to mention the actual sincere concern not only for his own country, but the entire planet, which one can tell is real by a look into his eyes, and not some permanent hideous smirk of one who knows he's only in power because of nasty trickeries, deceptions and frauds.
It confirms what I've been saying throughout this blog, such as in my articles about Gandhi or Yusuf Islam, better known as the former pop star Cat Stevens: It doesn't matter what somebody claims to believe, actions speak louder than words.
Or what I've said about the Pharisees: the religious leaders of Jesus' day basically believed or professed to believe the same things Jesus did, they read the same Scriptures and called the same God their Father.
But Jesus corrected them, and told them, that's what they thought, but in reality they were children of the Devil.
It doesn't matter if one believes or claims to believe all the right things in their heads. If their heart isn't right, it's of no avail. "By their fruits ye shall know them" (Mt.7:20).
I recently discovered a wonderful web preacher, who pretty much happens to defend the same point as I, that many people who call themselves Christians, but in reality give ear to doctrines that "tickle the ear" are simply sincerely deceived, and subject to the spirit of witchcraft, and that they may have another thing coming...
It's kind of encouraging to know that I'm not the only lunatic on the web preaching such things, although my degree of lunacy probably goes a few degrees further than that of Monica Dennington.

So, the gist is, even if George Bush really believed what he claims to believe in, (which I personally doubt, but even if he did,) I believe the world would have been better off with Al Gore for president. But I suppose, this world isn't destined for any genuine and lasting improvement or salvation brought by our own hands, because the point God is precisely trying to make is that no matter how many good intentions there may be, we're just going to make a mess of things without Him. In fact, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions,"
"and many there be which go in thereat" (Mt.7:13,14), (not to mention those with less than good intentions).

On the other hand - being the skeptic I am, especially when it comes to politicians - perhaps the whole things is just part of the plan of making Christians - and especially Creationists - look so stupid that it won't be hard to convince the rest of the world that they'd all be better off without them.

61 Happy Christmas!

Even though Christmas may not be what it once was or should be, it's always an occasion to remind the world of what life - not just Christmas - is all about.

We wanna wish you a merry Christmas from the bottom of our hearts.

60 The Infiltration of the Church - "Many Shall Cleave to Them With Flatteries" (Dan.11:34)

Recently we saw a movie I didn't particularly like, nor would I recommend for anyone to undergo the agony of viewing it, since it wasn't exactly edifying, but nevertheless, it kept me thinking for some reason. The plot: An Irish Mafia boss raises a kid to become his spy with the local police force, while at the same time his gang of criminals is being infiltrated by a less than lucky cop. In other words: a bad guy pretending to be a good guy who spies on them and betrays them, vs. a good guy pretending to be a bad guy. Both get killed in the end, and you feel like the one deserved it, but the other didn't.

It kept haunting me, though, and naiv as I am, I just can't help not believing in coincidence...

My personal - howbeit deceased - "guru" once wrote: "It's funny we never hear much about Judas in the churches, when they're so full of people just like him." I know, that hurts. No, this isn't going to be another attempt at writing my first politically correct blog, either.

But as it is, religious people have a a notorious history for rejecting the good guys who come to them and tell them the truth, while they usually receive with open arms the false prophets with their gospels of peace. False prophets were always more popular than the real ones, although it was usually the real ones who were labeled "false prophets" by the majority during their lifetimes. But history told the tale. There were hundreds of prophets prophesying peace and safety during the days of Jeremiah, the solitary voice proclaiming the downfall of Israel, who was tossed in the dungeon for his "heresies," but when he was pulled out of the hole, his "heresies" had been fulfilled.

One such modern day heretic was the former witch and Illuminist John Todd, who, during the 70s, claimed that the church was being heavily infiltrated by witches. Not many believed him. And I doubt many people will pay attention to my saying "I believe he was right."

You see, I just don't believe in coincidence. Why did I see that bloody movie around the same time I come across the voice of Rebecca St. James on some web radio station, inviting people to join her on the "Presidential Prayer Team"?

Now, I know that many folks sincerely believe that the president - Lord, bless his soul - is a genuine Christian. But then, not many folks are into using the gifts of the Spirit these days, such as the gift of discernment. Nor are they into Scriptures like "He that liveth by the sword shall also die by the sword," or "love your enemies." All they know is, "The Bible says, 'God bless America!'"

They're also not into "Insider" information (what they term "conspiracy theories") about Skull & Bones, the Illuminati & the guys who really run and ruin their country, in efforts to establish Papa Bush's long awaited wonderful New World Order.

So, they may all wholehartedly join Rebecca St.James - a Christian singer, - judging by her accent - probably from a country where she wouldn't have aspired anywhere near such heights as "the Presidential Prayer Team" with Christian music - in their prayers for their "Christian" president and his troupes that he's sending to slaughter the "wicked" Muslims. After all, didn't God command the Israelites in the Old Testament to wipe out all the Canaanites?

True. But a lot has happened since then. For example, God - the great I Am, Who created the earth, became flesh - a human being, and "dwelt among us," and preached a new gospel, namely that we were to love our enemies and convert them, instead of slaughtering them.

The problem is that people who are into power don't appreciate that kind of message. And that's why they reject Him. Then and today. Whenever He sends a messenger that gives them the Words of God for today, they do the same to him, as Jesus prophesied.

While the false prophets are being hailed and honored and treated like superstars. Has God all of a sudden become the God of the mighty, the powerful, the gun slingers and warmongers? Since when? Did I miss something?

Or did you miss something? - Namely the part of the Bible that's called The New Testament?

There's a new deal up, folks, and it's not "an eye for an eye" anymore, much less "ten thousand eyes for an eye," but it's the much less popular gospel of "love thy neighbor as thyself," and "love your enemies."

Apparently the history of the infiltration of the "good guys" by the bad guys goes back a long way: the popes who sent their crusaders off to slaughter the early Muslims probably also had their "Presidential Prayer Teams." And the Inquisition had their own "War on Terror" and "Patriot Act" and "Homeland Security" going on all along.

It's just that we thought we weren't living in the Dark Ages anymore.

That's really what we thought.

059 The Leaven of the Pharisees

If you type "leaven of the Pharisees" in your google bar, you'll come up with nearly as many results and definitions of the term, as there are denominations and churches. For the fundamentalist hardliners, the Pharisees of today are represented by the catholic church, whose members, again, have their own definitions.

I find the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees to be much closer to home than the other side, the other denomination. The leaven of the Pharisees is a sin we have all committed, especially the most righteous among us. It is the sin that nailed our Savior to the cross: Self-righteousness.

It's the audacity of thinking we have the right to judge another, blatantly defing Jesus' own commandment He gave us to "judge not that ye be not judged" (Matth.7:1). But we go ahead and do it anyway. We go around and call others "fornicators" and "adulterers" because they live together "in sin" without a marriage license.

We go around and tell others the Satanic lie that they can lose their Salvation if they don't watch out and stop sinning, quoting the only verse most Christians ever memorize on Salvation (Phil.2:12): "Work out thine own Salvation in fear and trembling" (Ahhh, it feels so good to cause others to feeeaaaar and trrrremmmmble, doesn't it? - So who's the pervert here?).... Of course, totally ignoring the dozens of Scriptures that make it quite plain that Salvation is a gift of grace, only to be obtained through faith, and without works whatseoever. What Paul was referring to in the verse above, is what we make out of our Salvation in this life, and what kind of a life we build on the foundation of the new life in Christ. But our eternal Salvation is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8,9), and if God is Love (1John 4:8), then He won't jerk that gift away from His child everytime he sins.

Besides, sinning is something we all do a lot more often than we like to admit. Those self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees of today are just trying to make it easier on themselves by re-defining sin: you are a sinner because you're not married, and I'm not, because I go to church on Sundays and have a marriage license. According to Jesus, everyone who even so much as looks at a woman and desires her in his heart, has already committed adultery (Mt.5:28). Now, the only sort of (male) people I know of who can withstand that natural urge God built into a healthy man's system, are homosexuals.

The leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees is the audacity to put oneself above another and say, "I am good and you are bad, because I go to the right kind of church, and my belief system is the right one." Jesus certainly didn't fit into the belief system of the Scribes and Pharisees, and likewise He could walk past any of those supposed followers of His today, who claim to be so much better than everyone else, and they wouldn't even recognize Him. They'd be the first to accuse, resist, persecute and judge Him again.

The leaven of the Pharisees is the audacity of anyone (even indirectly) saying to any "illigitemate" child, "The world would have been better off without you, because you were born in 'sin'."

It is the audacity of self-righteous church Christians all over the world who refuse to accept divorcees in their midst.

They are totally out of touch with God. They are Paulites, not Christians, and at the same time ignoring Paul's own warnings not to become followers of his, nor of Apollos, nor of Peter, but of Christ. And, of course, at the same time, blatantly ignoring the gist of Paul's epistles, which is to make clear that Salvation is by grace, and that "the fruit of the spirit is LOVE... against such there IS no law!" (Gal.5:22,23).

They miss the point of the whole story, starting with Cain (who thought he could win God's favor through his own works) and Abel (the prototype of the victims of the do-it-yourself religionists of all ages).

No matter how much those self-righteous little Scribes and Pharisees of today try to make life impossible for their fellowmen, "there IS no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1), as much as they're trying to prove the opposite!

They're only heaping up greater condemnation upon themselves (James 3:1). It's that kind of people who make Christianity a grim and bitter choice for those who would like to enjoy life a little bit.

No wonder there are so many Satanists and witches. With so many modern Scribes and Pharisees around with an attitude of, "If you don't accept my religion and live according to my rules, you're going to burn in the fires of hell forever and ever," they probably figure, "Okay, so I'm going to burn in Hell then, as long as I don't have to be a self-righteous prig like you!"

Just as the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day relied on Moses, and called themselves Moses' disciples (John9:28), entirely missing the whole point, as Jesus pointed out when he said, "Had ye believed Moses, then you would also believe Me, because he spoke of Me" (John5:46), so the modern day Pharisees rely on Paul, utterly oblivious to the point Paul was trying to make, and becoming the very people of whom Paul prophesied: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you" (Romans 2:24), referring to precisely the type of people who dare to judge others (2:1).

No wonder Jesus warned us of that kind of poison. It's the very stuff that turns hundreds of people against the true God by the hour, landing more people in hell - thanks to those "dedicated Christians" - than Satan could achieve by any other means.

No wonder Rick Joyner saw Satan's armies riding on the back of Christians. They're his greatest tools, and they certainly deserve his gratitude.

As far as Jesus goes, they should remember that the very way they treat even the least of His brethren is the way they're treating Him.

I can see a lot of red faces in the not too distant future. Red with shame.

Selected Scriptures About the Pharisees:

Watch "Overcoming the Religious Spirit" by Patricia King & Faisal Malick

058 The Corporation

Last night we watched "The Corporation," and it confirmed just about everything I often voice so vehemently, that I later find myself having to apopogize for it, such as in a reaction to an email from my sister about a book about how Islam is supposed to be the great evil menace of world peace.

You can wrap up just about any old b***sh*t and sell it to people as truth, if you just make the wrapping appealing enough. After all, it's so much more comfortable to believe that those bloody Arabs & Muslims are to blame for everything, instead of those liars who are running our everyday lives, enslaving us by promising us freedom.

It's much more comfortable, especially for people who are easily frightened, than all those uncomfortable movies & books by people such as are featured in "The Corporation."

For weirdos like me, it's so comforting to find out I'm not the only lunatic who doesn't swallow all that crap they're trying to shove down our throats, who sees the connection between the 3^rd Reich and today, and who refuses to watch another minute of the mass-manipulation they're spouting out through television.

I even believe that "The Corporation" disproves the paradigm of Evolution. See, according to today's level of "education," evil is a thing of the past.

That was back in the stone ages with that Australian dude, Hittler, or something, and his cavemen. But since then we've evolved into good people, and all them wars and stuff that Mom and Dad sometimes watch on the tube, you know, the "Nooz," or something, they're just necessary, because there are still a few backwards folks around, like them dudes with terbuns and stuff, that haven't evolved yet as much as we have, so that's good.

Well, according to my beliefs, and "The Corporation" has wonderfully - though sadly - confirmed that, evil has all else but disappeared. In fact, it's more sophisticated, more cunning, and more omni-present than ever, to an extent that all those remote control junkies out there couldn't even begin to fathom...

In other words, we haven't evolved at all, but to the contrary, if anything, we have devolved & gone further down the drain & the flow of the path the slimy old serpent started us off on 6000 years ago. His people are getting better at it all the time, and more skilled at making ever dumber and more ignorant zombies out of the rest of the masses, who couldn't care less what's going on, as long as they've got their entertainment & their fast food...

They're even so smart that they make the only solution & way out of this whole mess, namely Jesus and His dropout and anti-System message, look like part of the game by having all those duped, lukewarm, flag-waving patriots pose as "Christians," and making the rest of the world sick of "Christianity."

Time for God's genuine Endtime Army to get movin'!

Hold on, Baby, we're coming!

057 Dr. Pious & Mr. Cool

I've been listening to a bunch of Christian artists from the Acoustic Praise Café on Word of Truth Webradio, and noticed how a little bit of variety in the lyrics would really be refreshing, since it seems that a lot of them have a very limited vocabulary in which they have thus far learned to express their love, affection and devotion to God.

I've also been trying to imagine how they would talk in every day language, and about the probably vast difference between the way they sing and then actually talk, since they probably aren't very likely to address their friends in Shakespearean English: "Thy countenance dearly pleaseth me this day, beloved friend..."

It kind of strikes me as some kind of double-life, and it's one that I'm personally all too familiar with. We think we've got to tuck our religion away, keep it safely within the confines of our church or allotted time-slot of worship and praise, and then put on our "just-like-everybody-else" act again, as soon as we step out of our sacred halls into real life again, lest someone should get offended or think we're nuts.

Contrary to that, King David wrote, "I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually in my mouth." Again, the people I know who come closest to that, are The Family, although I must admit that our habits to praise the Lord continually have died down somewhat in recent years.

But if you'll visit any Family Home, you're probably very likely to hear the terms "praise the Lord" or "Thank You, Jesus" a lot more than anywhere else in the world.

If the "Most High dwelleth among the praises of His people," then we should make an effort to make Him feel at home with us.

It's also a matter of deciding, instead of "being conformed to this world," to "be transformed by the renewing of our minds." According to the ways of the world, we consider things we like, to be "cool" or "great," or "awesome," which is okay, but why not give credit to the One Who made'em that way? And that means, not just praising the Lord in church or whenever we sing our songs of praise and worship, but, as the Bible says, continually and "giving thanks always"?

If you've read Merlin Carothers' "Prison to Praise," you'll know what a powerful weapon it is, and how it can change lives. So what if others might think you're some kind of a religious fanatic or freak? Who are we trying to please? God or man?

Even if we don't have the faith to be praising God in front of unbelievers, at least our own Homes should always be filled with praise, and our friends and spouses should be used to hearing us praise, instead of resorting to the lingo we inevitably pick up from the movies...

Otherwise it's like some Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde syndrome, where we put on one face and personality on one occasion, and the other one on others, "Dr. Christian and Mr. Normal," or "Dr. Pious and Mr. Cool," etc.

We can develop the guts to just be ourselves, instead of what all our peers around us dictate is cool and accepted and what's not. Have you ever noticed how kids are being drilled into uniformity these days by the media? If Hitler would have had those sort of tools, he would have conquered the world. And as I always say, the next "Fuehrer" is going to come for sure...

Are we going to be mature enough Christians next time, to have the guts to dare to be different?

056 Shane Claiborne

055 Thou Shalt Love

In my treatize on "Bible Verses Most Christians Choose to Ignore" I've brought out some of the advantages and reasons that make me stick to my Family, even after 27 years of ups and downs, constant spiritual revolution and the accompanying controversy that's bound to appear as a side affect...

But I think I left out one - probably the most important factor.

Nearly every church or congregation has a verse that they choose as their dogma, their highest commandment: for the 7^th Day Adventists, it's the commandment to keep the Sabbath. For the Pentecostals, it's the gift of tongues. For most Catholics it's probably just being catholic. For Baptists, as for Mormons, it's the water. And then there are those red-white & blue flag waving patriots and warmongers who still seem to be clinging to the Old Testament dogma of "an eye for an eye..." (Not to mention those cunning politicians and leaders who pose as Christians, when in reality subscribing to the god of this world. You can recognize them by a very devout dedication to the 10 commandments: "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not covet; thou shalt not lie, etc., except that they always omit the word "not" from each phrase.)

Now, the highest, greatest, and yes, even only commandment the Family adheres to, above all, and which has been the gist of our message from the very beginning, is the very same one which Jesus Himself described as the fulfilment of all the laws and the prophets (Matthew 22:37-40), namely, to love God and our fellowman.

As our leader and shepherdess wrote, "The only thing that matters is love."

In other words, our religion is love, and as one nature-born sucker for love, I can only say that that's the only religion, in my opinion, ever worthy of subscribing to.

For most Christians, love is probably not enough. They need buildings, rituals, certain amounts of physically visible success as manifested in the abundance of the things they possess, but you can keep all that, if it makes you happy.

As for me, I'll choose love any day above that. After all, if God IS love, as the Bible tells us clearly, then what higher thing could there ever be to strive for?

When love becomes your religion, it becomes more than that. Most Christians keep their religion tucked away well hidden from everybody else, in some neat little corner in their lives they reserve for God: that hour on Sunday mornings, or that brief devotional reading or prayer sometime during the day, which I don't want to minimize or put down.

But when you truly seek to adhere to the first and great Commandment of Love, it becomes part of every facet of your life. And I think that's precisely what Jesus was trying to teach us. He was precisely trying to convey to us the opposite of the "separation of religion and state" of our minds and affairs. He was saying, if it's the Real Thing, you can't keep it separate. After all, re-legio(n) is about putting things together, not taking them apart.

So, anything less than love is not enough (true) religion for me. Anything else is at best a cheap imitation.

How does your faith manifest itself in your life? How does your religion come across in your interaction with others every day? How much do you express your love for God and others on a daily basis? How real is what you believe in?

054 Our Idea of Heaven

One of the outstanding (some probably say outlandish) factors about the belief in the 6 day creation of the world as described in Genesis, is that God created the earth before all the other stars and planets. What an utterly preposterous statement to make in the light of all that we "know" today about Evolution... or all that we think we know.

Who is man to think that his tiny little planet should be the first ever created? Certainly one could easily agree that behind all this stuff in Genesis wasn't much more than wishful thinking... merely one of the steps in the human mind's process of creating God: a child-like attempt to figure out how a God Whom we just invented, created us.

One would think.

UNLESS there's something we're missing. A few details about our future, and why our crummy little planet (compared to some of those huge monsters out there) should have been No.1, at least according to the Creator's timetable.

If one is to believe in the Bible at all, without interpreting every verse as "symbolic" or mataphorical, then we find at the other end of the Book, namely the final 2 chapters, Revelation 21 and 21, that there's a greater purpose in store for the earth than just to serve as a garbage heap for present day industrialists: As unbelievable as it may sound, according to Revelation 21:3,4, this puny planet, howbeit in a wonderfully restored form without seas (rendering quite a bit more living space for its populace), is going to be the Home of the vast Heavenly City, New Jerusalem. In other words, God has chosen this little, not-so-old planet for His future Headquarters, and it doesn't sound as if He were planning to move elswhere anytime soon after that.

So, if God has chosen the Earth to be His eternal HQ, it puts His making of that thing called earth in a slightly different light, doesn't it? All of a sudden, this place wouldn't just be one more insignificant spec of dust in a haystack of galaxies anymore, but quite something special...

Providing you have the childlike faith to believe all that, of course.

Maybe Earth is and was always meant to be only the beginning, the place from which the rest of the physical universe is going to be populated... I'm saying physical, because there's already a lot going on in the other, what we'd call non-physical dimension, a.k.a the Spirit World, the place where God momentarily abides, that we don't know of. Talkin' 'bout aliens! Even in the Bible, as old as that Book may be, you'll find aliens and U.F.O.s gallore, as described in chapters like Ezekiel 1 or Revelation 4...

So, Heaven is going to be pretty down-to-earth someday. It's definitely not going to be anything much like the way most people imagine it, floating around on fluffy white clouds. Nor can I imagine that folks in that Heaven on Earth are going to walk about dressed in suits, the way we see them depicted in "Watchtower."

Our idea of Heaven is somewhat different...

053 Six Days and 23 Hours – Or: Why Are the Churches So Screwed Up?

Anybody who has ever read the Bible and cared about what it meant can tell that there's something seriously and fundamentally wrong with established religion. The blatant gap between "Love your enemies" or "You cannot serve God and Mammon" and the actually practiced cult of violence and greed that has the audacity to officially call itself "Christianity" is too obvious for properly functioning minds to overlook, as rare as such may have become in our times.

What many people don't actually know, though, is why it is so. Why are the churches so screwed up - so many light years away from the practice of the teachings of the Man and the Book they so hypocritically claim to follow?

What is it about church that can turn 10-year-olds into atheists (as was my own experience)?

Well, you know the old saying, "If you can't lick'em, join'em," and that's precisely what the Devil did a long time ago, when it comes to Christianity. Somewhere along the line he realized he simply couldn't wipe those early Christians out, but that the more they were being persecuted, the faster they spread. No wonder St. Paul wrote that you can't really be a true Christian without ever suffering persecution. Truly living your faith as a Christian and consequently experiencing persecution go hand in hand (See 1Tim.3:12).

So, ol' Satan pulled out the peace pipe and realized that by stuffing it with the right blend of lukewarm compromise, he was able to do a lot more damage to the church (= "the ecclesia" = the "called out ones" from the Devil's matrix, since he's the one who temporarily runs things down here) than through opposition, namely from the inside.

So, one of the first "improvements" on Christianity the Devil instigated upon joining the church, was to persuade his fellow-"Christians" to ignore the apostles' and prophets' amonition that "the Most High" does NOT live in temples made with hands," and suggested, "Hey, now that Rome is an officially Christian empire, why don't we just convert all them heathen temples into Christian temples, er, churches? After all, we don't have to hide underground in the catacombs anymore, we can openly strut to our "services" on Sunday & show off our clothes. Why, we can even keep some of the old idols, errrr... statues of our old pagan gods and goddesses and rename them 'Mary, Jesus, St. Joseph, St. John,' and so on..."

Never before was being a Christian that comfortable.

Before long, Christianity had moved from the arenas of Rome's colosseums into the grandstands, as they turned from the persecuted into the persecutors.

No wonder Mohammed was so sick of what he saw in Christianity that he felt urged by God to initiate a new religion dedicated to wiping out this farce of Christianity-turned-into-idolatry.

Everything went honky-dory for centuries, and some of the heads of the church, supposed followers of Peter, the disciple of Jesus, who like nearly all the others of the original 12 had given his life for his faith, turned out so diabolical that there are still groups of believers nowadays who firmly believe that the antichrist is the pope.

Not that I subscribe to that, but just to demonstrate how anti-Christ Christianity has become over the centuries.

But then along came Luther. He just couldn't keep from reading that darned Book, the Bible, and while sitting on the toilet one day, one simple verse in it struck him like a lightning, and the divine revelation that the commercial system of selling forgiveness for money, as the Catholic church was practicing (until the early 20^th century, in fact), was NOT Christianity at all, since it said right there that "by GRACE are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8,9).

In other words, we can't go to Heaven by our works. It's a gift. One can only receive it (see also John 1:12, 3:16, 3:36, etc.). One simply had to believe it. In order to be able to believe it, the people had to know that God said it, so they needed Bibles. That was the beginning of the end of the superstition the world had come to know as "Christianity" for over a millennium...

A millennium which the catholic church officially believed to have been Christ's reign on earth, while for the rest of the world it pretty much resembled the Dark Ages.

But ol' Lucy didn't give up so quickly quite yet. After all, he had managed to deceive and delude and distract them Christians once - nah, countless times - before, and he was going to manage to do so again.

He had - and still has - various tactics to do so. After all, he has legions of fallen angels to help him sow division among believers, tell them lies or tempt them with greed. And if all that didn't do the trick, he could let them fall into the trap of self-righteousness and have them believe they were better than everybody else.

But on May 1^st 1776, he inspired the German Jewish mind of the former Jesuit Adam Weishaupt on behalf of the heads of the Rothschild family in Frankfurt to call into life an organization, which was going to successfully infiltrate pretty much all of the established religions available in the world's supermarket of faiths - as well as most of the world's governments, of course.

If Jesus had His church, His called-out ones of followers, then Lucifer was certainly going to have that, too. Only he wouldn't choose any bedraggled fishermen from some backwood, God-forsaken province of the deceased Roman empire. He was going to use the kings and queens of the world, the richest of the rich, those who were worthy of him and to be called his, the Enlightened Ones.

Apart from enlightening the benighted rest of the world, it was part of the Illiminati's job to make sure that the churches would stay "enlightened" as well, and not start practicing what that Son-of-a-carpenter Leader of theirs once said. Luckily, Christians turned out to be much more fond of ceremonies and rituals, and colored windows, organs and pulpits and paying off their preacher to keep them at peace for serving Mammon, instead of God, for 6 days and 23 hours a week... except for a few stubborn ones who insisted on becoming missionaries - but apparently there always must be a few fanatics around.

After all, they had been into this type of churchianity for centuries now, and like the chained eagle running back into the rut he had worn around the stake in the ground even after the chain had been taken off - Christians flip-flopped right back into their rut of churchianity, and pretty much didn't care too much about all that stuff Jesus had said about loving everyone and forsaking material possessions in order to follow Him... After all, that was 2000 years ago, and we had evolved into something much smarter than those apemen back then, right?

Right. That's why you'll find a statue of Charles Darwin right along those of the other "great" philosophers (like Jesus) in Rockefeller's Riverside Church in New York. Now that's a family that knows how to keep their fellow humans enlightened about what is politically correct to believe and what not, even if you must insist on calling yourself a Christian. And it helps to have the money, too, to make sure that the preacher will preach exactly that, to keep all those "Christians" as nice, obedient slaves to the Matrix 6 days and 23 hours, 52 weeks a year.

They also have enough money to finance the National Geographic society to make sure that some archeologist periodically finds another "proof" that we all come from the monkeys. And for those who insist on believing the other version (God made the world, and He could have done it in 6 seconds but chose to use 6 days for it), just put a lunatic in the White House who claims to believe that same stuff, and that will cure the half-way properly thinking rest of the world from such fanaticsim.

It's interesting to note that the spreading of Christian fundamentalism was part of the "Majesty 12" agenda for bringing about the New World Order. Have some people who claim to believe what the Bible says and preach it incessantly while at the same time behaving like Adolf Hitler, and that will cure the world of Christianity for good.

So, what's wrong with Christianity today? The same that has been wrong with it for nearly 1700 years. But you're not going to believe any of it, anyway, because you're smarter than to believe that the Devil actually exists, right?

Or, if he does, that you, a Christian, could actually have been so dumb to have fallen for his deceptions all this time, right?

Right...

"He that thinketh he standeth, let him take heed, lest he fall."

052 "Ye Shall Be As Gods..."

"Ye shall be as gods." A promise that would change the course of history of mankind drastically, and affect each man, woman and child's life ever since the very beginning. One simple choice - perhaps carelessly made on a whim - turned creation from a heavenly state into something a lot more like hell for most of us, while enabling some to create their own, artificial little "heaven on earth," where they would be able to play god themselves.

Are you one of them? Let's find out. In what way does Satan's temptation, offer and promise to us mortals, "Ye shall be as god's," manifest itself in our lives? In more ways than one, and a lot closer to home than some dare think.

First of all, one aspect in which probably most of us have fallen prey to it, is the urge to provide for ourselves, instead of letting God be the Provider. Before the Fall, man did have to work and look after the garden, name the animals, etc., but it was obvious that everything around him was a gift from his heavenly Creator. Only after the Fall was man doomed to till the ground in order to bring forth from it his own sustenance, and we've all been plodding away at that doom ever since. And that in spite of the fact that Jesus came to liberate us from that slavery to the treadmill of existing merely for our own survival, in fact, challenging us that we would not be able to serve God and the false god of wealth at the same time, but that He would supply all our needs, if we were determined to put His cause first in our lives and serve Him. How many Christians doyou know who really believe that?

Next, being "gods" has enabled us to create our own "reality." Before the Fall, man already had the knowledge of that which was good. Thus, when he chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the added factor was, in fact, the knowledge of evil, the stuff he didn't know before, and that made him so curious & fascinated them to a point where they would disobey God. The first piece of "knowledge" (or let's call it perception) that Satan gave them, apart from the fact that God was a liar ("ye shall not surely die") and the divine status (ye shall be as gods") that was awaiting them in exchange for the forbidden snack, was that it was wrong to be naked. While God obviously didn't see anything wrong with it, but even told them to have sex when He uttered His first commandment, "Be fruitful and multiply," the Devil obviously didn't agree (so, contrary to what we tend to think, the Devil hates sex, and he sure hates us producing offspring!), and helped Adam and Eve to see things his way, which made them ashamed of their nudity and gave them the urge to hide and cover up. "Welcome to your new reality, folks!"

Of course, this was a sad, but one of the more harmless lies that have pervaded our perception of things ever since, compared to the notion that it's perfectly alright to kill in order to further our own interests, all the way to our more recent dogmas putting us on one level with our "relatives," the monkeys and reducing us from our former, more glorious position of potential "gods" to mere "monkey-gods."

This also touches on a third aspect in which our "god-hood" influences us every day, because what enables us to kill and annihilate entire nations, races or peoples, is the ability to judge. We judge others and look down on them because they are different than we are, thus putting ourselves above them ("gods," after all), and thus condemning them, as the ruling and reigning authority over them, to the loss of their freedoms, their homes, their limbs, their lives, whatever we can get away with.

We have also become the masters of creation, doing the same kind of stuff we do to our fellow-humans to our lesser brethren, the animals, the trees, the rivers, the sky, the earth.

What else do gods do? Oh, yeah, they celebrate - mostly themselves, with wine, women and song, and that's certainly one thing we're great at: celebrating our own greatness and drowning ourselves in any kind of excess while we're at it.

Maybe I'm forgetting some aspect of our fake divinity, and if you happen to know another, feel free to let me know, or just add a comment to this train of thought.

One thing we must not forget, though, is the contrast true divinity constitutes to our momentary enjoyment of our status as the "masters of the universe." If God were like us, He would probably hate us and despise us for being so dumb, so short-sighted and superficial, to fall into any kind of trap the Devil puts before us. Thankfully, He's different, and although in some senses like us (since we were made in His image), yet highly superior. We may not think so, because in our superficial judgment we figure He must be kind of dumb to let us get away with all this, but what we mistake for dumbness is in reality an ability to love and pardon that is as superior to our limited capacities to do anything but wreak havoc and be proud of it, as is the vastness of the universe to the fake space we watch on Star Trek.

He cannot quit half-way through the show, though, before the end has been revealed and the lesson is obvious, of where all of this will lead. There is one final chapter yet to be written and added to this epos of "the god called man," one which Papa Bush already eagerly announced in the late 80s as the "New World Order" (and others of his likes did before him), and which will reveal the perfection of man's "divinity" and all he's really capable of without God. Now we're all curious to find out how that's going to end, aren't we? I give you a clue, though: Don't put your expectations and hopes up too high. Chances are, you will be disappointed. Just have a look at history. Is there anything we learn from history apart from the fact that we never learn from history?

In the end, it will turn out that we simply failed to read the small print in the deal: that little word "as" makes all the difference in the world. While the true God promises true divinity for those who hear Him, all you really get from ol' Lucy is a fake. All you did was swap the God of truth and love for the god of lies and hate. For the mere "advantage" of not having to recognize your Creator's authority, you'll get an appearance of freedom, but will always be bound to the slavery of the flesh, sin, and the head honcho of the same old "new world order" scheme that has been in charge ever since Adam and Eve let him...

When it all comes down to it, the only One Who can guarantee a happy ending for this mess we've gotten ouselves into, is the One we should have listened to in the first place.

051 Trapped in Pan's Labyrinth

This was the second time we fell for some totally screwed up movie rating from Christianity Today's movie section. The first time was a while back, when we went out of our way to get "Millions," CT's "most redeeming" of 2004 or 2005 or whatever, which turned out to be about as "redeeming" as "George of the Jungle."

But to give "Pan's Labyrinth" a 4-star (highest possible) rating was downright sick.

The only thing it did for me was to give me a speck of greater understanding of Revelations 12:15-17: "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

It doesn't matter what sort of vomit the Devil spews out, earthly-minded and carnal minded people will always swallow it, even if they call themselves "Christians." I never understood why this was supposed to be all that much of a help for the true church, though, until last night. The "help" consists of that one and only painful lesson: you can't trust them for anything. Not even their movie tastes and recommendations of what's good or bad. You can only rely on the Lord.

The people the Devil hates and tries to destroy are those who "have the testimony of Jesus Christ," and in a later verse in Revelation we find what exactly that means: "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev.19:10).

The Devil couldn't care less about pseudo-intellectual pseudo-Christians who swallow his crap, because he knows he's already got them in his pocket. In fact, his legions of demons are riding on their backs in their war against the true believers, as depicted in Rick Joyner's visions in "The Final Quest."

Such people only lead others astray, they think they're doing God service, but are in fact fighting for the other side, they don't gather with the Lord, but scatter abroad, deceiving themselves and others. The ones who pose any threat and challenge to the Devil are those who have the testimony of Jesus: the spirit of prophecy, those who use the gifts of the Spirit (instead of their own misled and misleading carnal reasoning) and are being led and guided by God's Spirit of truth and accordingly show forth the fruits thereof.

The total lack of any trace of God's Spirit, of discernment, and instead, their pseudo-intelligent babble, finally only serves to help us realize that you can't rely on such people's judgment at all. They swallow the Devil's lukewarm puke, hook, line and sinker, and go, "Yummy! Moooore!" They are those whom the Lord will spew out of His mouth, because they are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, spiritually wretched and don't even know it (see Rev.3:15-17).

It's because their God isn't really the true God, the God of truth, and the God of love. The only reason any so-called Christian ("because my daddy was a Christian, and the USA are a Christian nation"?) could give a top-rating to a ghoulish and hellish nightmare concocted by some demoniac, such as "Pan's Labyrinth" is because he finally found a movie featuring his true god: Pan himself, the demonic principality of the mind, the god of (pseudo-)intellectualism and carnal reasoning per se, worshiped by millions of Satanists and occultists throughout the world, and recognized, fought and resisted unto blood only by a few who have the testimony of Jesus Christ, the spirit of prophecy and the other gifts of the Spirit, such as discernment.

Any true Christian or true believer in the true God, or even a sane non-religious person with a half-way properly working mind wouldn't have given that movie more than half a star, because it is anything but edifying. It only glorifies murder, cruelty, bloodshed and Satan's wickedness, and only a spiritually totally deaf and blind person would have fallen for the thinnest layer of sugar coating the Devil ever had to apply to any of his deceitful devices: the worn out line about preferring to shed one's own blood to shedding the blood of the innocent. Now, what a revelation!

And such wisdom coming from Pan's mouth in the movie probably means that he must be a "good" spirit, right?

If Pan be your god, then keep on, dude, and serve him, but me and my house, we shall serve the living God of truth, Whom you know not, probably have never known, and which is probably why He will say to you, "I have never known you" (Mt.7:23; 25:12).

Thanks for opening my eyes yet another bit more about where Christians and Christianity today truly stand: certainly not on God's side. So, get out of our way, and stop wasting our time! We have a war to win!

050 Try - Just a Little Bit Harder

I've been raving a lot against evolutionists in my rantings. But I've just come to realize that they're not really all that much to blame. They just don't know any better. I was sitting here munching some cherries, marveling at their perfection and shaking my head at the blatant defiance of reason for anyone to assume that the perfection of the earth's natural fruits and their wonderful variety should have come about by coincidence. "It's a slap in God's face," or something to that extent I thought.

But then it dawned on me that you really can't blame a lot of people for their choice to reject God, most of all because of the lack of human samples of what God is really like. Those who call themselves His representatives on earth are so often so very un-God-like.

It's up to us to give the world a sample of what God is really like, and that's a fight of life and death, a fight to the teeth, because the Enemy of our souls will do everything in his power to prevent us from ever getting anywhere in the range of resembling the love of our Creator toward our fellow humans. It's tough. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. "Try just a little bit harder," Janis Joplin probably would have to comment on this.

Yes Ma'am! Let's try - justa little bit harder.

049 Tribute to Yusuf Islam

June 23
A few days ago I came across a Google video documentary on Yusuf Islam, the 70s Pop Star Cat Stevens, who was doubtlessly one of the major musical influences in my life, next to people like James Taylor, the Beatles or Stevie Wonder, etc.

What was so very special about the path Yusuf Islam has chosen, however, is the fact that he left his worldy career of fame and glory for a spiritual one, and for very much the same reasons that prevented me from ever seriously taking necessary steps conducive to a life of fame and fortune in the first place.
What was all the more amazing to me, though, was that Yusuf, just as I noted earlier about Gandhi - although his spiritual path was one that according to outward appearance seems to be in opposition or competition of sorts to the Christian path I chose- seems to be doing a much better job at being a true "Christian" than so many others of my fellow-Christians (not excluding myself).

I asked the Lord about this phenomenon of those outstanding members of other religions like Gandhi and Yusuf Islam, who seem to be doing a better job at following in His footsteps than the large majority of Chistians I have seen in my days, and He answered:

"Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness" (Matth.8:11,12). It is just so that the children of the Kingdom often take the Kingdom for granted and despise it, while those who yearn for it from afar treasure it.
I have some outstanding children even among those who are not "official" part of what is considered to be My kingdom.
Just as the "children of the kingdom" persecuted Me and had Me killed, many of the "children of the kingdom" of today never knew Me, and I never knew them. While many from the east and west, from other religions and cultures, readily receive Me.
Just as "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly," so he is not a Christian that is one outwardly only, and not as he should be, inwardly, worshiping in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.
Just as Gandhi could not receive Christianity as the truth for lack of a true sample of My teachings among those who called themselves Christians, so it is with this one. Yet they both were familiar with My teachings and lived the truth in them better than many of those who claimed to be Mine. That doesn't mean that you have to become a Muslim or Hindu in order to find My truth. But it means that it doesn't matter what you call yourself: you better don't despise My Words, or I may choose a Hindu or a Muslim to take your crown, because they have lived and practiced My teachings before you did.
My Bride has gone astray. Can you blame them for not wanting to be part of that stray bride? They'd rather show their allegiance and adoration for the Bridegroom by showing Him reverence from afar. They don't want to risk the mockery of the "bride," the old church, who has always mocked and persecuted the new one.
What really makes the difference is not in what you claim, but actually do, and where your heart is, while you do it. Who are you really doing it for? Is it just to boost your own ego and to make you feel better about yourself?
This man has overcome the temptations of the ego and has given the world a monumental example of a brave and valiant step to take, away from the superficialty and ego-worship of this world to true and humble and meek spirituality. As I have said of the non-Jewish woman in My day, I must say of him: "I have not found such faith in all My house!" Nor such dedication, nor such hunger or thirst for the truth.
the large gist of those who call themselves My people are continuing to lead the world astray into the worship of Mammon, the ways of self, the glory of the flesh and the worship of the things they create with their own hands...
My Spirit and My grace, and the Father's love are a lot more all-embracing and all-encompassing than many Christians would give Him credit for. Their philosophy remains one of separation and shutting others out, while My call has always been, 'Come!' Whoever is athirst, let him come and drink of the waters of life freely!
Many of those who claim to have the truth and act as exclusive representatives of Mine, or of God or His truth will have quite a few surprises waiting for them. That's why it's important that you stay on the humble path of the seeker and the learner. Keep a 'beginner's mind,' always aware of the fact that there's so much more to learn than what you think you know already."

048 The Disappearance of Truth from the Web

Is it just happening to me, or is the good stuff slowly disappearing from the web, and only the crap remains? Videos that gave some real valid information on the NWO and were still available until recently from Google videos or even YouTube have disappeared and what remains is some sad tales of former vampires & dweebs who ascribe God Himself to the geniuses of the Illuminati, including the Bible and everything in it.

Of course, that's not a new tactic, to make God and His people look like the culprits, but it always leaves a little bit of a sober bytaste, every time you realise that yet another little bit of truth is disappearing.

Get ready for the Great Confusion...

047 Coming Home

There's a beautiful scene in the movie "Antwone Fisher," which describes death for a believer, or coming Home to Heaven better than anything else I've ever seen, and is all the more touching when you realize that the film is a true story. Antwone Fisher is one of those beautiful people still walking on this earth who never had a true home on this earth during his early years, having been raised in orphanages & foster homes accompanied by traumatic childhood experiences.

His Navy Psychiatrist (one of Denzel Washington's best characters ever) encourages him to go and find his real family in order to get at the root of his problems with aggression & feelings of worthlessness. And so, when he finally does find the family of his deceased father, there comes the most beautiful scene in the whole movie, where he enters his aunt's house and meets all the relatives he never even knew he had, everybody eagerly welcoming him, introducing themselves briefly to him with excitement, until finally his aunt gives the signal to open a double door to the dining room, where the old members of Antwone's family sit awaiting him at a richly decked table, very similar to a dream he had at the start of the movie.

An old lady (presumably Antwone's grandmother), obiously too weak to even speak, knocks on the table in an effort to demand attention and beckons Antwone to come to her with outstretched hands. Gazing into his eyes, hands in his, and recognizing her long lost son in this, newly found grandson, she finally utters one heartfelt "Welcome," and in this moment you feel like, if you'll ever make it to Heaven, this will be the only word you'll want to here.

So many of us are wandering through life like Antwone Fisher, like Orphans, oblivious to the large family that awaits us when we'll finally come Home from this life's search and journey. We sometimes feel abandoned, too, worthless, often not even due to any wrong we've done, but simply because we figure that there is nobody who loves us enough to have stuck it out with us.

And yet, I am convinced that every person has a huge family awaiting them in eager anticipation, like Antwone Fisher, consisting of ancestors we may never even have heard about. We may not know them, but they know us alright.

Some folks may not be all too keen on being confronted by no high and mighty angels when they get to Heaven, perhaps confronting them with all the wrong they possible might have done. But everybody, I'm sure, can be looking forward to coming Home to their true family, the ones of whom you'll know, "that's where I belong. These are my people," and I bet that's one event making Heaven a worthwhile Place to look forward to and hope we'll eventually wind up there.

Maybe it will take some of us a longer detour to get there than others, but I have a notion that sooner or later we all will. We all will (John 1:9).

046 A New Covenant

I'm coming to the conclusion - not without the usual, probably considered highly heretical input from above - that another monumental change is happening in our era, similar to when Christ walked on earth 2000 years ago in order to establish a new covenant between God and men.
The old covenant (testament) had been between Him and the physical descendants of one man, Abraham, more specifically, the branch of the descendants of his son Isaac, also called the Jews. That covenant also roughly lasted 2000 years, until that race proved to be unworthy of the right to the title "the people of God," or His exclusive representatives.
After Christ died - simultaneously with the passover lambs that were being prepared by every pious Jew around the world, and embodying the very symbolism of each one of them, yet without most of them recognizing this fact, and the temple veil was supernatural rent in two to reveal to the world that the arc of the covenant wasn't there anymore (by the way, you can stop looking for it; the Bible tells us where it is in Rev.), the old covenant was dead. In order to become a child of God from henceforth, all one had to do was not just have the luck to be born of a special, chosen race, but to accept the sacrifice God made in offering up Jesus, His "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev.13:8).
So, for 2000 years, the people of God had a new name. They called themselves Christians. I'm coming to the point, though, where I see that the new people of God, the Christians, are erring just as much from the true basis of their faith, and are straying just as much from God, no matter how vehemently they claim to be God's people nominally, as their ancient predecessors did, and God must be looking around for anybody, from any faith or religion, to do the job the Christians refuse to do, and be living samples of the truth the Christians refuse - to either accept, or to live and obey. One of those men of God, for instance was the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi, who probably lived a better and truer sample of what a Christian was supposed to be like than each and every other Christian on earth during his life-time, put together.
That doesn't mean I'm promoting Hinduism. It just means that God can use anyone, even a Hindu, to promote the true meaning and essence of Christianity, if He can't get any of the Christians to do it. I'm coming to the conclusion that Christ is exclusively for the Christians no more than He was exclusively for the Jews.
Of course, most Christians will probably want to stone me now, just as the Jews stoned Stephen, one of the early Christians - from the time when a Christian was still a follower of Christ, not Mammon - who proved that the rug of God's anointing had been pulled out from under Jewish feet and given to true believers in Christ.
Back then, it cost something to be a believer in Christ: you had to pay the price of persecution for it, of being an outcast. A Christian was a member of a minority group, a small, perecuted and highly controversial sect. Those Christians have long since moved from the arenas of the Roman colosseums into the grandstands. They're no longer martyrs, but they make martyrs of others: fellow Christians, Muslims, Hindus, whoever stands in their way.
No wonder most honest people in the world are disgusted by the term "Christian." It has become a term that stands for anything but what Christ stood for: exploitation and supression of the poor, domination of anybody too weak to defend themselves by the "Christian," Western "civilization."
Those dear Christian brethren simply haven't realized that they've been infiltrated and taken over by the other side, and the spiritual stench of their house has become so bad that God had to move out, run and hide elsewhere, anywhere He would find shelter among humans, in the hearts of the humble, whether Christan or not, the true People of God.
The People of God are the People of Love (see John 13:35). If they don't happen to call themselves Christians, I won't blame them. Can you?

God's mind on the matter:

vv