Francis Berger

Repentance as a Path to Greatness; G From Junior Ganymede Explains

3/7/2021

G has written an inspiring and insightful post on the subject of repentance over at Junior Ganymede. I have included some excerpts below (slightly edited by me), but I encourage everyone to read the whole post here.

Repentance is the path to greatness. That is the path we have to choose.

We could also say it is our path to glory or goodness or heaven. All true. We were meant for greatness but we are not yet great. We are too ill-formed as yet. So we must change.

We can imagine someone who doesn’t need to change to be great. They only need to develop further who they are inwardly. Christ was like that, I think. We are partly like that too. We were meant for greatness, the seeds are already there, we are just unfolding them. But for us it also means changing who we are. We have contradictions inside us.

Hmm. We might even say that all paths require repentance. Any purpose we have at all is going to require some resolution of our inner contradictions. To choose one thing is to forgo choosing another.

We could even define repentance that way – repentance is when we choose to forgo something wholeheartedly, not because we are forced to, not resentfully, but because we have genuinely chosen. It is that simple. No need to make a big mystery about it. Repentance sometimes takes time because sometimes we have to enjoy the first fruits of our decision before we can truly embrace it.

If we have to repent anyhow, we might as well repent for greatness.

I appreciate the positive approach G uses to describe the purpose of repentance. It challenges conventional views of repentance as a purely negative action motivated by fire-and-brimstone fears and shameful, guilt-ridden acknowledgements of one's past sins and transgressions. It should not involve looking back into the past with sorrow and regret. It should empower and involve embracing the present with enthusiasm and joy.

As G explains, true repentance can never be forced; it must be embraced wholeheartedly. Also, repentance should never stem from resentment, but from the joy inherent in genuine choice.

I believe it is helpful to view repentance from the perspective G presents - not as a "necessary" and perhaps not-wholeheartedly accepted change that entails some sort of "negative" loss, but rather as thoroughly welcomed expression of one's own free will and agency to choose change that leads to positive gain.

Put simply, repentance is not simply about "freedom from"; it must include "freedom for." Moreover, the "freedom for" should be substantially "bigger" than the "freedom from." Thus, repentance should not merely be about relief or escape.

After all, repentance is a crucial component of learning, and each genuine act of repentance should lead to useful and meaningful insights about oneself, the world, and God. True repentance should lead to increased understanding and discernment about what it means to choose to be on the side of Good.

I envision each genuine act of repentance as a moment of metanoia - a mini act of spiritual conversion all to itself.

In this sense, repentance is not just about regret or remorse; it is the decision to initiate a positive and transformative change in the heart and mind.

More than necessary steps in spiritual development, repentance ought to be viewed from the perspective of freedom and creativity. When we repent, we open ourselves up to the possibility of fundamentally changing our thinking.

This, in turn, may lead us the possibility of fundamentally changing our behavior or mode of life, but a failure (or repeated failures) to do so should not negate the mini-spiritual conversion, more specifically, the spiritual understanding and discernment we acquired in the repentant act.

Repentance cannot always solve our inner contradictions, but it can help us acknowledge our contradictions sincerely and authentically. This alone is positive. It may not sound like much, but it is a step toward greatness all the same.

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What is the Church Now?

3/5/2021

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My penfriend Father S. Janos - a retired Orthodox priest, prolific Russian-English translator, and expert in all things Berdyaev - offers his definition of what a church is:

What is the Church?? The historically venerable and Beautiful structures are, however, not the essential part... The core and essential element is the individual Believer within his Family, and in the Extended Family, -- the Parish!... Christ teaches: "Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am in their midst!"... And thus, Orthodox clergy in greeting one another exchange the threefold "Kiss of Peace", not some mere handshake but an actual Kiss, as anciently was done between believers, -- and is proper even now amongst Layfolk... In exchanigng the Kiss of Peace clergy proclaim: "Christ is in Our Midst!" to which is replied: "He is and He shalt be!"...

2020 was not a good year for churches. 2021 is not shaping up to be much better. The choices churches have made and continue to make concerning litmus tests and birdemic agenda issues have not done them any favors in the eyes of serious Christians. As a result, some of these Christians may be contemplating the validity of Christianity altogether.

To anyone in that position, I can only say the following - do not fall into the trap of interpreting church closures and the continuing corruption of Christian institutions as a purely negative event in the further development of Christianity.

After all, the churches in the System are no longer churches in the proper sense of the word anyway. Think about it. How many can confidently declare that Christ to be in their midst?

To paraphrase something else Fr. Steve mentioned in his comment, the antinomy concerning churches may in fact be a blessing. The time has come to soberly consider what Divine intelligence is communicating to us amidst all of this.

You are now the church; you and your family are now the church; your family and other families you love and can trust are now the church. That is how it all began; that is now where we need to be; that is how Christianity moves forward from here.

And if you are a solitary Christian without family or community, take heart; the Holy Spirit is accessible to every individual. Christ is in the midst and shalt be in the midst of the solitary as well. Far better alone with Christ than in a community without Christ.

Note added: Fr. Steve maintains an excellent Berdyaev website (see side bar), which I highly recommend. He has also translated many of Nikolai Berdyaev's books - some of these translations are available here.

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Paging All Old Slavic Women Wielding Canes

3/4/2021

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We could really use your help right now!

Chort and Babushka - Jakub Rozalski

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Most People Are Unaware of The Global Coup; The Few Who See It, Don't Really Get It

3/3/2021

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In a blog post published today, Bruce Charlton shares his views about a decent, well-informed blogger "who is trying to understand the world, one piece at a time, but without the necessary basis of a coherent world view (i.e. Christianity)."

Dr. Charlton writes:

"He is great at describing the pieces of the jigsaw, I don't know of anyone better; but he cannot put the pieces together - because he has made the prior assumption that there is no Big Picture (i.e. he believes that reality has no over-arching purpose or meaning)."

I have no opinion of the blogger Dr. Charlton describes, but I do have an opinion about the underlying point Dr. Charlton makes. Writers, thinkers, and bloggers who believe reality has no over-arching purpose or intrinsic meaning ultimately fail to understand the fundamental nature of the topics they address in their work.

Case in point, the great - and still virtually unnoticed - Global Totalitarian Coup of 2020. Only a handful of people of whom I am aware were perceptive enough to recognize the takeover when it happened. Among those, even fewer displayed any awareness of the encompassing spiritual dimension of the event.

Dr. Charlton, on the other hand, not only perceived the coup in real time, but was also acutely aware of the Big Picture implications of the event as it unfolded.

Even more remarkably, his coherent, Christian worldview allowed him to intuitively predict the event months in advance.

A handful of people have since awakened to the reality of the birdemic totalitarian takeover, but once again, barely any of these perceptive individuals really understand the 'complete' Big Picture. As a result, a great deal of the information they share lacks depth and discernment.

Here's a recent example from a leftist organization called Resilience, which advocates for "building a world of resilient communities" to offset the oppression of globalization.

What we’re really concerned about is that this initiative by the World Economic Forum actually looks to entrench the power of those most responsible for the crises we’re facing. In many ways, it’s a trick. It’s a sleight of hand to make sure that things continue as they are; to continue the same.

That will create more of these crises, more of these pandemics, will deepen the climate crisis, which will deepen inequality. It’s not a Great Reset at all. It’s a Great Corporate Takeover. And that’s what we were trying to draw attention to.

What we’ve been finding in recent years is that really there is something I would call it a kind of a global, silent coup d’état going on in terms of global governance. Most people don’t see it.

Like the blogger to whom Dr. Charlton refers, this organization is great at describing the pieces of the jigsaw, but it cannot put the pieces together. It cannot put the pieces together because it lacks a coherent worldview based on the primacy of the spiritual; more specifically, a worldview based on Christianity.

This lack of a Big Picture perspective also leaves the individuals within the organization open to believing in the reality of the traps the Establishment continues to peddle, most notably, the litmus test issues of the climate crisis and inequality, both of which Resilience affirms as pressing, real-world problems.

So, imagine this - Resilience not only fights, but actually defeats the Davos capture of world governance. What would happen after that? Well, Resilience would probably turn around and start fighting climate change, or force people into small resilient communities, or legislate greater equality.

At the most fundamental level, nothing would change!

Though it is refreshing to see others becoming aware of the Global Totalitarian Coup of 2020, it is disappointing to know that very few will really ever become aware of the Big Picture behind it all.

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Death Is Not Simply and Solely an Evil; It is Also a Good

3/2/2021

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One way to contemplate the development of human consciousness is from the perspective of orientation. More specifically, to examine the directional movements of human consciousness over time and to assess the quality of spirit behind these directional movements. The spiritual orientation of these directional movements determines the character of the consciousness, which in turn decides the true nature of knowledge; that is, how we as humans think about and understand ourselves and the fundamental nature of reality.

One aspect of life that has undergone many directional shifts is our consciousness of death. Over the past two or three centuries, the West has experienced the most pronounced directional change in how humans think about and understand death. The origins of this unmistakable veering can be found entirely in the changes of spiritual orientation the West experienced as it entered modernity.

Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire until the approximately the early stages of the Enlightenment, the spiritual orientation of the West was indivisible from Christianity. The Christian consciousness of death was a radical expansion of the pagan consciousness of death that preceded it. Though pagan religions also adhered to belief in souls and the afterlife, these beliefs were qualitatively much different from the Christian belief and faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ as exemplified by St. Paul's declaration in Philippians 1:21 that, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

This declaration emerges from the deep, inner, spiritual understanding in the non-existence of death - in the comprehension of death as the way leading to life, in which the life of sin is crucified, and the path to eternity is opened. It stems from the comprehension that we must die in order to reborn; that the essence of life is the transition from lesser being to higher being in which death serves a necessary conduit. As such, death is not simply and purely an evil, it is also a good.

The orientation driving this consciousness recognizes the primacy of the spiritual over the primacy of the worldly and commits to the comprehension that the end of the worldly does not mark the end of the spiritual. With the advent of modernity, this consciousness was slowly superseded by a purely external, material, and temporal comprehension of death that perceived no gain at all at the end of life. Within this consciousness, St. Paul's declaration faded and was replaced by something akin to, "For to me, to live is World and to die is loss."

By the late nineteenth-century, Nietzsche's pronouncement of the death of God accurately reflected the observable changes that had occurred and were occurring in the spiritual orientation of the West, which had taken a hard turn into materialism and was immersing consciousness into the objectified, temporal world.

The perceived death of God had a profound effect on Western man's consciousness. A world devoid of God was a world devoid of the spiritual, which entailed that there was no soul, no afterlife, no eternity. All awareness of the inherent good in death dissipated. Mortality became an ultimate evil - the line of demarcation separating material being from material non-being. Far from being considered as non-existent, death became concrete. At the same time, mortality abstracted into an unreal and indefinite phenomenon that people saw happen around them but could never imagine actually happening to them.

When Westerners did contemplate the all-too-sudden final reality of their own mortality, they were consumed with anxiety and an increased irrational fear of death, which Freud eventually termed "thanatophobia."

In the meantime, secular materialists continued to insist upon a sober, rational understanding of human mortality that would lead to an enrichment in life. Rather than squander precious time and energy preparing for an imaginary, non-existent afterlife, people were free to dedicate all of their energy to creating meaning and enrichment in this worldly life. This led to an explosion in material wealth and comfort, but as the centuries passed it also lay bare the existential crisis of alienation and meaninglessness. Paradoxically enough, the thicker the alienation and meaningless became, the more Westerns continued to burrow into their world of pure materialism.

Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl captures the epitome of this consciousness in his 1898 painting, Souls on the Banks of the Acheron, which I briefly explored on this blog last year. Adhering to Nietzsche's proclamation of God's death made fourteen years earlier, Hirémy-Hirschl presents the catastrophe of the post-Christian "for to me, to live is world to die is loss" material consciousness of mortality inspired by the spiritual or, more accurately, anti-spiritual orientation of the age.

Fittingly enough, Hirémy-Hirschl addresses the theme of material thanatophobia via non-Christian, classical pagan symbolism. In the painting, the messenger god Hermes (or Mercury) stands amidst a grasping mob of recently dead souls he has guided to the underworld and stoically ignores all desperate pleas to return to the sunlit world above. The souls' deranged hysteria has been triggered by the appearance of Charon, on the skiff in the background to the left, approaching to ferry them off for judgement where their fate of spending eternity in Tartarus or Elysium will be decided.

Souls on the Banks of the Acheron - Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl - 1898

What is glaringly evident in the painting is horror the closed-eyed souls exhibit in finding themselves in the afterlife. Though some appear listless and resigned to their fate, the majority frantically appeal to the divinity in their midst - a divinity none likely in believed in prior to death - to save them and return them to the world. In this sense, Hirémy's painting does not depict an appeal to salvation, but rather, a fruitless appeal to be restored to the material world, which well reflects the "for to me, to live is world and to die is loss" consciousness that began to predominate the late-nineteenth century. Though some of the souls will undoubtedly be granted entrance to Elysium, there is no apparent good in the death Hirémy-Hirschl presents here, which suggests the painting itself could be interpreted as a thinly-veiled attempt to urge the consciousness of the age to reconsider its character and underlying spiritual orientation.

Unfortunately, such a reconsideration has not occurred. Rather than re-orient ourselves spiritually, the character of our contemporary twenty-first century consciousness has dug ever deeper into materialism. The underworld Hirémy depicts above has become the reality of the "material world" of the West. Within the framework of this loose interpretation, the hysterical dead souls represent the thanatophobic living people among us. Charon symbolizes the abstract reality of approaching meaningless death while Hermes exists as a representation of the "faux-divine" Establishment who postures to protect and "save everyone" and return them to the "normal material world" but is stoically intent on having all of them board the skiff to damnation. Comprehending no other alternative and perceiving nothing good in death, the dead living souls live a deranged, splintered existence in which they willingly embrace the Establishment and its materialism as their only, but fundamentally hopeless, chance at earthly salvation. This consciousness could be summarized by the following: "For to me, to live is anti-Christ and to die is annihilation."

A change in this hopeless direction of consciousness requires a re-orientation of the spirit. To begin with, it requires the re-establishment of the primacy of the spiritual coupled with a deeper understanding that this primacy is not merely a reflection of reality or a symbol of reality, but that it is Reality itself. This orientation of the spirit will, in turn, orient us back toward a true understanding of death. Part of this process will inevitably involve a return to a comprehension of death as not only an evil, but also a good encapsulated in St. Paul's "to live is Christ and to die is gain". But the bulk of the spiritual task before us does not rest solely on returning to this earlier, albeit utterly essential and eternal, frame of consciousness through which salvation may be attained.

Our task will be gather the courage and the daring to go beyond an understanding of death is gain and one day have the orientation of spirit to declare, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is Christ."

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My Body, What Choice?

2/28/2021

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My body, my choice is the rallying cry feminists employ to defend bodily autonomy and the individual's right of self determination over their bodies for sexual, marriage, and reproductive choices as rights. The slogan has been used most often to support a woman's right to abortion in the face external domination or duress, most notably government legislature or religious objections.

Bodily autonomy is connected to bodily integrity, which, according to Wikipedia (slightly edited):

is the inviolability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination of human being over their own bodies. In the field of human rights, the violation of the bodily integrity of another is regarded as either an unethical and/or possibly criminal infringement. Freedom of choice describes an individual's opportunities and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties.

For decades, human rights lawyers and activists have been passionately utilizing bodily integrity to defend a woman's right to murder her own unborn children. I wonder if these same lawyers and activists will use similar tactics to defend people who are opposed to their governments' injecting them with potentially risky substances under the pretext of protecting everyone from the birdemic?

What about the issue of immunity certificates, which will grant the immunized certain benefits but leave those who choose to pass on immunization out in the cold?

Let's have a look . . . (bold, underlining added)

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is planning the pass as a digital certification which will allow for the revitalization of international travel by proving that those who it authorizes are safe from the virus.

Other forms of proving protection from the virus are also in the works. The World Economic Forum, the Commons Project, and a number of public and private partners are currently collaborating to create the CommonPass, an app which proves the user’s COVID-19 status, allowing them to travel abroad.

The app has been criticized by human rights activists, who say that it could be unfair, since not everyone has a smartphone.

Well, it appears the only thing human rights activists and lawyers are worried about is equity and accessibility. So much for bodily integrity.

But we still have choices, right? Sure! You could choose to forget going abroad and stay within the borders of your country. Problem solved.

Air travel is one thing, but immunity certificates are also being suggested for other activities including attending concerts, visiting museums, eating at restaurants. They could potentially be required for activities of a more essential nature like grocery shopping, accessing public health services, and being employed.

Despite these proposed restrictions, everyone can rest assured that immunization will remain purely voluntary. After all, we all possess fundamental, inalienable rights that simply cannot be violated; and we have pieces of paper somewhere in our capital cities attesting to this . . . or whatever.

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The Transition From Human Rights to Privileges and Special Benefits

2/27/2021

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In yesterday's post I argued that the era of human rights - which has its modern origins in the Enlightenment declarations and revolutions of the late eighteenth century and provided the foundations of Western secular liberalism and democracy - is over.

The concept of universal human rights is based on the belief that they are inalienable, fundamental rights to which all human beings everywhere are entitled from the moment they are born until the moment they die. Though human rights are generally considered to be inviolable, they are essentially a legal concept. As such, they can be suspended or taken away through various means - legal or otherwise - in response to due process or extraordinary circumstances.

Over the past year, the birdemic has been hysterically promoted as an example of an extraordinary circumstance requiring the suspension of many inalienable and fundamental human rights. The perceived extreme risk of the birdemic to human health and safety made the suspension of human rights a relatively easy affair for governments and corporations the world over. Most common people were only too willing to "temporarily" suspend their inalienable rights in an effort to protect their lives and the lives of others.

This willingness to sacrifice would not necessarily be a bad thing in and of itself if the societies in which we live and the powers that rule over us were aligned with good; more specifically, if they were honest, ethical, and moral; even more specifically, aligned with the primacy of the spiritual. Of course, if we lived in societies like that, the birdemic never would have developed in the manner that it has. Perhaps it wouldn't have appeared at all.

Unfortunately, the powers ruling over us are aligned with forces opposed to God, and the societies in which we live are demotivated, alienated, despairing, and severely maladaptive. Thus, the current suspension of our "inalienable and fundamental human rights" - regardless of their glaring insincerity and obviously "problematic" origin - will certainly become permanent. Whatever rights are permitted to re-enter common understanding from here forward will be termed "privileges" and "special benefits."

The real-time abolition of human rights we are experiencing stems from currently unfolding re-definitions and re-conceptualizations of what a human being actually is as well as what a human being is entitled to be and do. Although these new definitions are essentially being forced from the top, their success relies greatly on the consent and readiness of people to accept them at the bottom. If the birdemic has proved anything, it is this - modern people are ready to accept anything.

This readiness is most apparent in the aforementioned re-conceptualization of humanity. In the here and now, human beings are basically infectious bio-hazards - biological substances that pose a significant health risk to other biological substances. As such, they must be curtailed, contained, restricted, and neutralized. The only way to ensure the containment and neutralization of the threat these biological hazards pose is through a complex and intricate system of testing, tracking, and tracing leading to the establishment of safe environments, thereby offsetting the risk each bio-hazard potentially carries.

The paragraph above not only encapsulates the official re-definition of humanity, but also reflects the manner in which most individual human beings have redefined themselves. This re-definition renders all previous perceptions and declarations of human rights moot. Bio-hazards possess no inalienable, fundamental rights; at best, they can be granted privileges and special benefits.

Hence, mundane activities such as eating in a restaurant, attending a concert, or traveling to another country will no longer be listed as rights, but rather as privileges and special benefits. Bio-hazards that refuse to be neutralized, monitored, tracked, and traced, will be barred from most, if not all, privileges and benefits, which may eventually be expanded to include other seemingly mundane activities such as using public transportation, attending school, accessing public health services, and, yes, being employed.

People who agree to be neutralized, tracked, monitored, and traced are generally motivated by the hope that submitting to such measures will help everything return to normal. At the same time, the possibility that eager submission to the neutralization measures actually decreases the likelihood of a return to normal are rarely, if ever, considered.

But they should be. After all, submission amounts to confirmation. By agreeing to be neutralized, people are agreeing with their new classifications as bio-hazards. They are basically declaring that they need to be controlled, contained, tracked, traced and so forth. Sadly, all of this also paves the way for potential expansions in the definition of humans as hazards.

Today we are merely bio-hazards, but tomorrow we will identified as eco-hazards. The day after that, psycho-social hazards. Each expansion of the newly adopted hazard definition will, inevitably, necessitate further restrictions and curtailments, all in the cause of implementing safe environments.

As is the case now, rights will not enter into the equation, but the promise of privileges and special benefits will surely be offered to those who enthusiastically get with the program.

Note added: This post does not advocate for a return to the "normal" world of human rights, but is rather an attempt to draw an attention to the underlying spiritual implications of the current shift away from human rights.

Further note added: Just for the sake of clarity, I do not believe in the concept of universal human rights, neither the conventional ones enshrined in the fundamental documents of Western democracies, nor in the more contemporary ones that vociferously defend the various profane rights of perceived victim groups the Establishment champions.

Human rights have been an absolute disaster right from the start. Privileges and special benefits are merely extensions of that absolute disaster in a severely restricted form with the clear potential for even greater levels of disaster in the offing. All of it is evil abstraction.

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The Era of Human Rights is Over

2/26/2021

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A couple of days ago, I took a peak at the UN's Declaration of Human Rights and discovered - surprise, surprise - that the vast majority of those coveted rights have already been thoroughly trampled upon during the first year of the dreaded birdemic. These sorts of things tend to happen after global totalitarian coups . . . I mean, global birdemics.

Aw, come on, this has never been and still is not about the birdemic.

Anyway, the UN's Declaration of Human Rights is essentially little more than an expanded, global version of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which was issued by the National Constituent Assembly of France in 1789. If the date seems somewhat familiar, it might because it also marked the beginning of the French Revolution. This fundamental document, which was composed under the auspices of "the Supreme Being", begins in the following manner:

The representative of the French people, constituted into a National Assembly, considering that ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man are the sole causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of governments, are resolved to expose, in a solemn declaration, the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man . . .

. . . and so on and so forth.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen drew much of its inspiration from the ideals of the American Revolution - secular natural law, human rights, civic rights, and personal freedoms, all modeled upon the sanctity of the individual. These ideals were summarily declared to be universal and valid in all times and places. Thus began the reign of libertas, which ruled the West mostly unfettered until the birdemic coup of 2020.

The eighteenth century has long been a target of traditionalists and reactionaries, most of whom regard the late 1700s as an enormous wrong turn. I tend to agree with them, but the bulk of my agreement is not fixed upon political or social concerns.

When I think about the late eighteenth century, I tend to think about the wrong turn primarily as the culmination of a missed opportunity in the development of human consciousness. Over the course of previous centuries Man had positioned himself to attain a viable shot at spiritual libertas, but in the late 1700s ultimately missed the mark and chose material libertas instead.

Though the enlightened revolutions and declarations professed to be inspired by and aligned with the divine, they were not based upon the primacy of the spiritual, but rather on the primacy of the material. As a result, the rights and freedoms the enlightened revolutions and declarations secured ultimately failed to fully address the true nature of Man.

Since they were not firmly rooted in God and Creation, the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man eventually devolved into the unnatural, alienable, and profane.

Nevertheless, the veneration for universal human rights continued unabated. Shortly after the Second World War it morphed into idolatry. It has maintained this status ever since and - despite the steady obliteration of nearly all basic and fundamental human rights over the past year - continues to maintain this status even now.

When the birdemic broke in the West, the vast majority of people were only too happy to surrender their natural, inalienable, and sacred rights. A year later, people continue to believe the suspension of their most basic and fundamental human rights is temporary - that their natural, inalienable, and sacred rights will be restored to them after the birdemic subsides and things return to normal.

I'm no fortune teller, but I believe things will never return to normal. A return to normal would entail a return to Western liberalism, democracy, human rights, individual freedoms - more succinctly, the world of material libertas that began in the late 1700s.

For all intents and purposes, the world of material libertas has ended. What we are in now are the initial stages of material servitus.

The only meaningful way forward is spiritual libertas through Christ.

We need to stop obsessing about the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of man and begin focusing on our divine-human responsibilities instead.

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The Apparent Absence of Transcendent Help Is No Reason To Feel Powerless

2/25/2021

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As the birdemic closes in on its first year in the West, many Christians appear to be sinking into a deep pit of perceived powerlessness.

Nearly all Christian churches abandoned their congregations in early 2020 and nearly all continue to abide by the incoherent birdemic measures imposed upon them.

All, or nearly all, Christian churches have willingly aligned themselves with the global technocratic totalitarian agenda.

Not only have many modern Christians decidedly failed litmus tests like climate change, anti-racism, and equity/equality, but most happily sport these failures as badges of honor.

A great many more are eagerly lining up to get pecked with anti-birdemic juice in the hope of protecting themselves and their "neighbor" so things can get "back to normal", a decision most major Christian churches have endorsed and promoted as a sacred moral and spiritual duty.

In the midst of this seemingly endless parade of blatant evil, there remain some Christians who have not spiritually surrendered to the birdemic coup. I imagine a great many of these Christians are praying and waiting for the arrival of transcendent help. This is, after all, in a spiritual war; and in a spiritual war, one can use all the transcendent assistance one can obtain.

Though I firmly believe that transcendent forces are fully active, I am also convinced that much of this activity is currently and appropriately inaccessible to us. Many Christians who remain committed to the side of God and Creation interpret this inaccessibility as absence and are beginning to feel helpless as the demonic pressure continues to ratchet up all around them.

I imagine a great many of these Christians maintain solid faith in God, but sometimes wonder why God has not responded to this faith. To these Christians I offer the following - perhaps it's time to start wondering why we haven't responded to the faith God has in us.

In a recent post detailing the encroaching danger of mass despair in the West in the complete absence of conceivable worldly solutions to the birdemic, Bruce Charlton noted:

The choice is stark: despair or Christ.

And Christ is necessary, but not sufficient - because each must work actively for his own destiny in this world; and for his salvation in the next.

For most Christians - converged and un-converged alike - the idea that Christ is necessary, but not sufficient immediately raises red flags. But this reaction stems from what I would define as a constricted assumption about the nature of Christ's mission, which is limited to Christ's offer of salvation.

Salvation makes Christ necessary, but our willing acceptance of the salvation Christ offers is also necessary. Those who actively embrace salvation achieve freedom from, but salvation alone does not provide freedom for. Freedom for is the neglected part of Christ's mission - and that neglected part is theosis.

Dr. Charlton's observations regarding the active work required to attain one's destiny in this world and salvation in the next suggests that our destiny and salvation are not dependent solely on the transcendent, but also involve something immanent within us.

When we consider the apparent absence of the transcendent in the world today, it should not inspire feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. On the contrary, the apparent absence of the transcendent should instead motivate us to develop the daring and courage to look within rather than continually look above.

Such suggestions will sound misguided, risky, perhaps even heretical to some Christians who remain entrenched on the side of God and Creation, but I ask these Christians to - at the very least - consider the possibility that the current (apparent) absent of the transcendent is embedded in Divine wisdom and love. Transcendent absence could also be a testament to the tremendous faith God has in Man's latent creative power, as suggested by Nikolai Berdyaev in The Meaning of the Creative Act:

Doubt of man's creative power is a self-conceited reflexion, a morbid egotism. Humility and doubting modesty in places where there should be daring confidence and decision are always disguised metaphysical pride, reflective retrospection, and egoistic isolation, born of fear and terror.

Times are coming in the life of humanity when it must help itself, conscious that the absence of transcendent aid is not helplessness; because man can discover limitless aid immanent within himself if he dares to reveal in himself, by the creative act, all the power of God and the world, the true world, freed from the illusory world.

Note added: I have used the term transcendence rather loosely and vaguely here. For the purposes of this post, I am referring mostly to concept of transcendent help - that is supernatural assistance manifesting in the "natural" mortal world in the form of perceptible signs, communications, miracles and the like.

The apparent lack of such perceivable signs has left many Christians feeling helpless and powerless. My main point here is that this apparent lack of "signs from above" suggests Christians are either not looking in the right places for these signs or have not developed the means to recognize and acknowledge them when they appear.

Rather than inspire feelings of powerlessness and helplessness, I suggest a lack of signs from above should be regarded as a positive sign of God's faith in us. Rather than feel powerless, the apparent lack of transcendent aid should empower Christians to embrace new ways of thinking and understanding and become wholly active in nurturing a divine form of consciousness. Thus, the aid we seek (and the aid we need) needs to originate from what is divine within us.

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Albrecht Dürer's Saint Eustace

2/23/2021

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Readers occasionally inquire about the image in the blog header above. Though some have recognized the stag with the crucifix between its antlers as belonging to some saintly legend or other (or to the Jagermeister logo!), only a few have been able to correctly place the story or the artwork thus far.

So, the image in the blog header above is a detail close-up taken from Albrecht Dürer's engraving of Saint Eustace, which was completed some time around 1501. The piece depicts the conversion of Placidus, a second-century Roman general who experienced a vision of a crucifix between the antlers of a stag he had been pursuing during a hunt.

Legend has it that the stag turned to the Roman and spoke to him in Christ's voice, instructing Placidus to go and be baptized by the Bishop of Rome and take on the name Eustace. Dürer's engraving captures the essential moment of Placidus's spiritual conversion to Christianity.

I have a personal affinity for the Saint Eustace story and stags - and the story of Saint Hubertus as well! - because it is analogous to a spiritual experience of my own. That experience did not involve any stags with crucifixes betwixt their antlers, but it still served as a conversion all the same, or, in my specific case, a re-conversion.

Note added: Click on the image to view a larger, more detailed image of the engraving. Well worth it.

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