Francis Berger
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Perfect Fear That Cast Out Love; The Massive Spiritual Defeat of Churches in 2020

2/25/2022

6 Comments

 
If the 2020 global totalitarian coup and its birdemic have taught me anything, it is this – modern people are ruled by fear.

Nikolai Berdyaev reminds us that fear is never a good counselor. On the contrary, he considered victory over fear to be “the first spiritual duty of man.”

To say that modern man has neglected this first spiritual duty is an immense understatement. It is closer to the truth to say that modern man no longer recognizes victory over fear as a duty of any kind, let alone a spiritual duty.

Duty connotes responsibility, commitment, faithfulness, and allegiance. Spiritual duty implies the same things, but a much deeper and “more real” level. Modern man has severed all connections to this deeper, “more real” level. Consequently, modern man’s only sense of duty is to react to external forces that exert pressure on him. If the external world informs modern man that he must fear, then he feels it is his duty to be afraid. When the external world offers modern man ways to alleviate the fear, he will consider it his duty to engage in those ways in an effort to ameliorate fear.

Rarely, if ever, does it occur to modern man that the problem of fear is internal rather than external. On the contrary, he appears convinced that the same external forces that generate fear can package and sell victory over fear. He applies this logic to all aspects of human life. Everything must come to him from outside; nothing can arise from within.

The pervasiveness of fear in our time and place is evidence of mass despirualization. By denying the existence of the spiritual, contemporary people deny the existence of their own spiritual nature - a spiritual nature that is utterly inseparable from and indispensable to what it means to be human. By rejecting the reality of God and their own divine selves, modern people reject the sources from which all positive human qualities, values, and dignity emanate.

Humans who deny that they are spiritual beings also deny the meaning, purpose, and ultimately, reality of the human experience in which they are immersed. Their core reality as spiritual beings cannot fully engage in the human experience they are having because the "human" aspect of the experience has been overly distorted, inverted, and muddied. They sink to the level of push-button automatons, incapable of much beyond the reacting to threat or pleasure stimuli derived from the external world.  

Though many atheists believe otherwise, Christianity is not a push-button automaton religion. On the contrary, it is a religion of freedom and love, which implies that it must be a religion of victory over fear because the presence of fear hinders both freedom and love. Perhaps this is what Berdyaev alludes to when he insists upon victory over fear as the first spiritual duty of man.

I imagine Berdyaev’s victory over fear declaration draws upon Jesus’ teaching in John 4:18: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

The message is a clear one: Victory over fear can only be won through love. Fear is punishment because any person who lives in fear has not been perfected in love. Thus, Berdyaev’s injunction of man’s first spiritual duty amounts to an injunction for love because the victory over fear can only be achieved through love.

I wonder if the reverse could also be true. Can victory over love be achieved through fear? Can perfect fear cast out love? That certainly seems to be the motivation fueling the 2020 global totalitarian coup, which succeeded primarily because it was able to generate something approximating “perfect fear” via the birdemic. The satanic elite was sure to infuse all sorts of altruistic, none are safe until all are safe statements of “love” into its “perfect fear” campaign, but even the most cursory of evaluations quickly reveal that these statements were flagrant inversions of Jesus’ teaching the Fourth Gospel. The “love” the satanic elite offer does not cast out fear – it exacerbates it.  

Yet it is with this campaign of perfect fear that nearly all forms of organized Christianity willfully aligned in 2020 and remain committed to even now in 2022. Like the satanic elite, churchmen the world over rationalized their submission to the perfect fear campaign by claiming they were acting in the spirit of Christian love.

Some invoked the decree of neighborly love. Others turned to the “thou shalt not kill” edict of the Ten Commandments. Whatever the case, they were all fervent in their insistence that their actions sprang from love, not fear. At the same time, they showed no interest or inclination in banishing the fear. Instead, they actively stoked the fires of fear the satanic elite had lit around the world by shutting down churches and cancelling sacraments, all in the name of “safety” and Christian love.

Berdyaev’s instruction regarding the victory over fear as man’s first spiritual duty involves the victory of internal love over external fear. Christian churches abandoned this first spiritual duty in 2020, and they continue to neglect it, even today.


Instead of drawing upon the source of love, they made fear their counselor and remain committed to the evil machinations of “perfect” external fear. This commitment to perfect fear demonstrates that organized Christianity is perfectly happy to live in fear. Moreover, Christian institutions want to convince the world that this state of living in fear is somehow analogous to living in love.

Individual Christians need not follow a similar path. Unlike churches, individual Christians can remain committed to their first spiritual duty to cast out fear through love – but this commitment must not rely on what is outwith, but must emanate from within. 
6 Comments
Trent Appleman link
2/25/2022 16:57:39

This message is healthy and practical, both in itself and as to alignment with the Gospel. Casting out fear is as practical as it is theoretical; it is the *perfect* rallying point for Christians at this time: casting out Project Fear. We can cast out Project Fear peacefully but firmly together, each in our own way. Godspeed, and I'm glad that you retain employment. You lost yours in around the same timeframe as I did.

Reply
Francis Berger
2/26/2022 22:12:15

@ Trent - Sorry to hear about the job loss. Have you found other work?

Reply
bruce charlton
2/26/2022 18:30:43

I realized around the millennium that the leadership of all the institutions I knew about were inferior to people lower in the organizations when it came to the 'function' of the organizations.

So that the leaders of science or medicine were actually among the worst of scientists and doctors - worst in terms of the basic requirements. The science leaders were completely dishonest and uninterested in discovering truth; the medical leaders indifferent to treating and alleviating illness, and actively doing things that would worsen it.

More to the point, by the millennium it had become almost impossible for a real scientist or doctor to become a leader - indeed they were lucky to survive in employment.

The churches are supposed to be under divine guidance - but it turns out that they are actually just like the other social institutions. Real Christians are excluded from leadership positions, and find it difficult to remain employed in churches.

The trouble is that institutions can't survive when leadership has no validity or authority in their 'core activity' - and too many find it literally inconceivable that science, medicine or Christianity can exist without the institutional basis. Indeed the position wrt churches has for many centuries been exactly that -no salvation outside 'The' church.

So, institutions including churches (their leadership) are destroying their own functions - thus the churches are actively destroying themselves as *Christian* organizations. And Christians are being excluded not just from leadership, but from the churches.

But many Christians cannot conceive of Christianity without Church (or outwith church).

For many Christians it is regarded as Terrible News when they are told that they not not need church to be a Christian - they really do not want this to be true.

They do not want to believe that God can and does arrange things so that they (or anybody) can be a Christian, follow Jesus, and go to Heaven - all by themselves. Somehow, it seems they would rather follow their church to Hell and be damned than that this be the case...

Such is the catastrophe of our times.

Reply
Francis Berger
2/26/2022 21:22:01

@ Bruce - Good comment. Yes, I agree. "Salus extra ecclesiam non est" is deeply ingrained. A difficult nut to crack.

And this is where faith based on nothing beyond reason and rationalizing becomes so treacherous. Too many are convinced that the gates of Hell will never vanquish churches, to the point that they are more than willing to walk through the gates of hell to prove it.

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Milton Stanley Sr. link
7/17/2022 01:51:40

"Perfect fear casts out love" is deeply insightful and I plan to use it in my preaching. The thoughts in both the original post regarding fear and in Dr. Charlton's comments regarding institutions are spot-on.

It seems, however, that the assumption from both writers here is that Christians have a binary choice between institutional Christianity and individual discipleship apart from association with any church. In fact a third way exists: congregational (little 'c') churches without a higher denominational allegiance. Independent churches can of course be as worldly as larger institutions (and many are), but they can also be powerful beacons for truth and love. Christian discipleship is at its heart a corporate experience and should be lived that way if at all possible while being obedient to God. Doing so is not too difficult in Tennessee, but I suspect it is more challenging in Hungary or the UK.

Thank you, gentlemen, for shining light in a dark and darkening world.

Reply
Francis Berger
7/18/2022 08:50:13

@ Milton - Thanks. To be clear, Dr. Charlton and I do not insist that complete disassociation with any and all churches is the only way forward, but that Christians within or outwith congregations and churches must take full personal responsibility for their choices, discernment, and assumptions.

What we insist upon is personal discernment of and personal responsibility for one's religious choices. We live in times in which every Christian, regardless of denomination, simply must employ personal discernment when it comes to belonging to or obeying any form of institutional Christianity.

The reality is Christians -- even the most ardent among traditional churches -- are doing this already. The era of blind faith in external church or congregational authority is over (at least for now).

Every Christian must exercise personal judgement in these matters, even those who belong to small congregations that continue to be beacons of truth and love, because one day Christians in such congregations may be faced with the same painful choices Christians in larger churches currently face.

Some view the choice rather bleakly. They cannot accept remaining within corrupted churches and congregations and do not accept the viability of "individual discipleship". Consequently, many end up ignoring their personal discernment and choose to remain passively obedient to corrupted church authority. Or -- worse -- they end up turning their backs on Christianity altogether.

Small, powerful congregations are great, especially if they function like loving families, but very few Christians have access to these sorts of congregations today. Hence, for them the choice whittles down down to sticking with the corrupt church or congregation, setting out on their own, or abandoning Christianity.

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