Bruce Charlton's Notions

William Arkle distinguished a way above and out-from the traditional dilemma of obedience versus disobedience to God; by considering the question from the larger perspective of God's creative intention with respect to Men (discussed in the post following this). 

In an letter to Jon Flint* (that I have slightly edited below), William Arkle discusses the Bible episode in Genesis 22; when Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son Issac - and obeys this instruction; but God intervenes and stops this at the last moment. 

When Abraham "passed" his test over his son's killing, to my mind he only got 60% for obedience. 

If he had said to God "This is not like you, I won't do it", he would have got 100 for unobedience. 

Thus God could foresee problems with the Jewish people. 

Arkle explains that un-obedience to God arises-from the black and white of disobedience and obedience being in conflict. 

In other words; what God most wanted was not that Abraham would obey, or disobey, a specific instruction that he regarded as coming from God; but that Abraham would instead recognize that the real and proper question was at an altogether larger and more general scale.  

Neither dis-obedience nor obedience was required, but un-obedience. 

What arises from this conflict is unobedience, which is a condition beyond the relatively automatic stages of dis-obedience or obedience, and has become autonomous and calculated and chosen.

Both disobedience and obedience are sub-optimal. 

Arkle suggests that dis-obedience to God can become addictive, leading to a psychotic condition where the disobedient person becomes driven, and almost unable to choose - like a junky. 

I think Arkle partly means that disobedience is usually done for short-term and hedonic reasons, and that an hedonic (immediate-pleasure-seeking) attitude to life carries all the lethal consequences of heroin addiction: its hedonic effectiveness always diminishes; getting pleasure gets to be all-consuming; life, thought, motivation become focused around blindly serving the agent of pleasure. 

Disobedience to authority is therefore self-destructive, like the negativism of a young child who does the opposite of what he is old - something which would rapidly be lethal, unless loving parents were available to step-in. 

But on the other side; while obedience is necessary and good in children; for grown-ups too much obedience can also be harmful; as seen in Abraham obeying an order that (if he truly understood and knew God) he should have realized was incompatible with God's Goodness - hence could not truly have come-from God. 

Arkle comments that "oneness" teachings (so common in New Age spirituality) lead towards oneness becoming a form of "super-obedience", in which the individual is taught to regard himself as "a nothing" - incapable of discernment. 

In other words, with oneness, the individual disappears-into the divine so that "obedience" is utterly impersonal, unchosen, automatic - not so much obeying as annihilating all possibility of anything else, and becoming an unconscious cog in the divine-mechanism.

Thus obedience, taken to the ultimate, tends to an un-Christian (more Hindu or Buddhist) ideal of the goal of consciousness and free will (and being itself) being dissolved-into the immanence of the divine. 

To put it another way; obedience to God should not and cannot be the highest ideal without becoming unChristian or anti-Christian. 

Obedience is only valid within the larger and modifying context of knowing and loving God; and God's ultimate wish for us is that we should transcend obedience to become an un-obedient participant, and eventual collaborator, in God's creative work. 

*I have reviewed a selection from these letters.

I downplay obedience on this blog, and deliberately. Obedience is a virtue in childhood with respect to parents - but this blog isn't for children.

Obedience is the choice to substitute another will for our own, because that other will is better than ours, and because we judge our-selves incapable of agency. But that is Not our ultimate goal as spiritual persons; at most it is a means to the end of agency.

Obedience is not, therefore, a general virtue - it all depends... As an adult, there needs to be an embrace of responsibility, and the personal exercise of discernment. If you can discern an individual or an institution to whom you judge obedience to be due; then it can be a good thing - at least for a while, or under particular circumstances (such as illness, or disability).

But if not? If we do Not judge the authority of any other human person or institution to be superior to our own? If, on the contrary, we regard them to be corrupt?...

And that is precisely our cultural situation. We live in uniquely degraded times, and obedience to institutions is a short route to the extremity evil. Obedience to a superior individual who also loves you makes sense, if any such can be found - but there aren't many.


Obedience to God is therefore, for us - here and now - a direct matter. Most of us cannot (in all honesty, and with the greatest possible consideration) identify any person or group whom we would trust above our-selves to represent God to us. We cannot, should-not, rely on the Goodness of intermediaries, our-selves being obedient to them. We need to reserve our discernment against a possible attempt to corrupt us.


At least that is my situation. I spent several years trying to find a church (or even just a spiritual adviser - one single man) to whom I could be obedient; but my deepest intuitions warned me off all actual available options. There were people from whom I learned - none to whom I dared risk obedience.

Such is the pace and scope of corruption of our time and place that I would find it hard to recommend obedience as a path to anyone, even when it comes to children in the best churches with the best track-records (parents need to stand guard, as back-stops). I fear that all of them are acutely vulnerable to corruption, even in the short term of a few years - and for this we must be prepared.


Instead of obedience in the traditional Christian fashion (as of a monk to Abbot, priest to Bishop, layman to Priest); I would recommend the same attitude as we adopt to a teacher of a skill or discipline when we are learning. We obey our piano teacher, or the doctor teaching us medicine - but only up to a point, and within a restricted scope.

I would go so far as to state that obedience, in its traditional sense, is neither achievable nor achieved in this era. Many of the people who argue the primacy of obedience from a stance of traditional Christian (or any other) religious practice, I simply don't believe practice obedience in that spirit that it used to be practiced. Although I would not confront them, in my heart I doubt their truthfulness when they say they do live by obedience. Whatever they actually do, it is something else than obedience.


All this cannot be helped. Indeed it is overall-good, because necessary.

(It is indeed a harsh lesson, is modern society; but only because our culture refused to learn the easy lessons. Until after the lesson has been learned, by each of us as individuals and society at large, that harshness will only escalate.) 

I think of obedience in terms of the evolutionary-development of consciousness. We are now, like it or not - but we ought to like it - trying to develop from spiritual adolescence to adulthood. That is our unavoidable task; because we cannot become children again - and to remain stuck in the phase of adolescence is fatal: look around...

Some traits that were virtues in a child, like spiritual obedience, are not virtues in an adult

There isn't an agreed word to describe the kind of Christian I am - so I will label it Intuitive Christianity for present purposes - and compare it with what might broadly be called Catholic and Protestant versions. Understand that this is a short post - and what is described are 'ideal types' meant to capture a particular essence of each version. I am talking of ultimates - not of practical living - which will surely be multi-factorial...

The transition between childhood and adulthood takes place at adolescence - and adolescence is the only path from the one to the other. The essence of this transition - from an ultimate and divine perspective - is the transition from Obedience to Freedom.

(Noting that Freedom means something like Agency - i.e. becoming a conscious, actively-autonomous, personally-strategic adult: a source of innate motivation, decision, creativity.)

Obedience roots The Good externally - in some person, institution or social group. The Christian assumption is that these external sources are conduits of God's will.

(As in childhood - the child's role is to know and follow the guidance of parents, family, church, school, social group etc. - and such obedience is 'passive' - it does not require consciousness, and indeed young children are only somewhat conscious.) 

Freedom roots The Good in The Self, internally. The Christian assumption here is that God is within-us - as a deep, true Real Self.

Note that Freedom (that is Agency) is truly Good only if the Real Self is Good. And in practice this is a matter of contention among Christians - because clearly the overall-self is not wholly Good - so some kind of discrimination, definition and distinction concerning the Self is required.

1. The Catholic belief is that the Church (the mystical Church, contrasted with the organisation) is Good, is the conduit of God's will - but the individual is fallen and (in essence) depraved such that for the individual to be Good entails Obedience to the (mystical) Church.

God intervenes to ensure that The Church is and remains the conduit for God's will, and worthy of Obedience. Freedom is mostly about choosing this Obedience.

In practice, therefore, all Men are more-or-less permanently children; so permanent Obedience a necessity. Freedom/ Agency of The Self would be a cruelty; because as individual agents all Men are damned... self-damned by their sin and incapacities.

Freedom is therefore, and necessarily, tightly circumscribed by the overall duty of Obedience.  

2. The Protestant also believes that Men are depraved; but with the capacity to know Good by Obedience to divine revelation, especially as encapsulated in Scripture.

That is, all Men - as autonomous selves - are incapable of Freedom in the ultimate sense of agency rooted in the Self; but all Men have the innate capacity to understand Scripture and choose Obedience to it.

God intervenes to make this understanding of scripture possible; and that the Freedom of choosing to obey Scripture will be under God's will. Freedom is tightly circumscribed by the overall duty of Obedience.

3. My understanding (Intuitive Christianity) is that Freedom/ Agency is our proper, divinely-destined and ultimate goal - here-and-now, in The West; superseding the primacy of Obedience (whether to Church, Scripture or any other external source).

Christianity therefore ought to be rooted in the Real Self and pervasively based upon the Real Self; and Freedom ought not to be constrained to the primal chose of Obedience to Church or Scripture; but this discerning Freedom ought to be incrementally extended to all other matters of primary importance.

This is based upon a conviction that the Real Self is in fact God-within-us; and also distinctive to ourselves alone. In other words, as children of God we inherit God's divinity - but also each child is unique and has an unique destiny within creation.

(There must be a distinction between the true-real-divine Self which is intrinsically Good - and the multiptude of false selves which arise from error, sin, by inculcation, for expedience etc. - which may be good or evil; but are not divine, are often arbitrary and typically transient.) 

We all (potentially) know The Good innately and directly - and the ultimate authority is therefore with, not external; the ultimate value is Freedom to live from the Real Self, not by Obedience to any external source excepting our direct knowing of God.

Therefore, in an ultimate sense, my conviction is that Man - any man, any woman - may attain to salvation and live a life of theosis from-within; without membership of The Church or access to Scripture of other external sources; and, indeed, in an ultimate sense it is proper and best for a Christian's Life to be rooted in n the Freedom of the Real Self, and not in any external source.

In sum: Freedom is a higher (more mature, more adult) value than Obedience. 

External sources may of course be helpful, perhaps very helpful - but here-and-now in The West external sources may also be extremely harmful - the Church may be (usually is) subverted, corrupted and anti-Christian; Scripture, its translation and its interpretation is likewise usually corrupted, distorted, selective, misrepresented - inverted.

Indeed, it is precisely this situation that creates the urgent necessity of an Intuitive Christianity based on the individual and Freedom.

My understanding, therefore, is that Freedom has always been an essential element of Christianity; but in the past Freedom was used to make a single choice of Obedience; of whom or what to serve. In the past Obedience was more important than Freedom.

My contention is that this primal and vital Christian Freedom ought now to be extended to all major and significant aspects of Faith. From now, Freedom is more important than Obedience. That is our divine destiny; if Man is to move from his current spiritual adolescence into adult maturity.

By and large, most people would count loyalty and obedience as virtues - albeit minor virtues; and that it what they are: minor virtues, whose virtuousness is seondary to the end for which they are deployed. 

When, however, loyalty and virtue are deployed for ends that are evil (i.e. ends that take Satan's side in the ongoing spiritual war of this mortal life, the side who are against God and creation), then loyalty and obedience become evil. 

 

Obviously so - one would suppose. Yet L&O are among the deepest and most spontaneous of minor virtues, being reinforced by evolved instincts to do with Men being 'social animals'. The archetypical situation in which loyalty and obedience are natural and spontaneous are the feeling of offspring towards parents: rightly so. 

Yet, here we can also see the limitations. L&O to loving parents is absolutely right; but when the parents aren't loving, or when caregivers are not parents, then L&O may be an instument of evil. For example, L&O to the surrogate parent Fagin in Oliver Twist is to live in service of evil. 

Also, the parents may change. Parents may begin good and become evil: start by leading their children in the path of salvation but then lead their chidlren towards damnation. Surely we have all seen this? And if loyalty and obedience prevailed, the child would follow the parent into Satanic-affiliation. 

 

And this is the analogy most appropriate to our current situation. Many of us have begun life with a sense of loyalty and obedience to some social institution that we believed to be net-Good (i.e. overall-Good). For me, as an atheist until middle age, my loyalties (and partial obedience...) was to such institutions as my school, college, 'science', 'medicine' and the universities. These I regarded as essentially good, well-meaning, groups. 

But over the decades all of these changed radically. If these were indeed (as I supposed) net-Good institutions forty-something years ago - they are now (obviously!) in service to the evil agenda of the Global Establishment and its unified bureaucracy. If I had remained loyal and obedient to any or all of them, then I would by now be following the demonic path that all of these institutions support and assert. 

 

But if I had been a Christian, and my primary loyalty had been to a church, then much the same would have happened if I had retained my L&O to the institution - since the main churches and denominations have all embraced the anti-Christian, leftist totalitarian agenda. 

As I said yesterday, all that is required is a single window for Satan to enter-in and take-over a person: or an institution - and (obviously!) churches are not exempted. 

Over the past few decades the way-into churches has usually been the sexual revolution, in its various aspects. Churches that supported any of the major planks of the sexual revolution (whether abortion, 'no-fault' divorce, feminism, QERTY, trans or whatever was fashionable) have all joined the dark side. 

 

At present the wedge-issues by which demonic entry is forced are antiracism and the birdemic.  

Unless your church has explicitly, unambiguously and totally rejected the Big Lies and False Assumptions that drive the antiracism and birdemic issues; then your church has already accepted the primacy of the evil agenda. Your church has joined-with the mass-majority, mass-media and Establishment... Your church has joined the anti-God side of the legions of Satan.  

Unless you cease to live as-if loyalty and obedience to your church were the primary virtues, unless you discern; then you will (like so many tens of millions of other ex-Christians before) surely be led down the path to damnation. 

 

It was Jesus Christ who made Heaven possible: there was no Heaven before Christ. 

That was the main thing He did. 

Jesus brought Men resurrected life eternal; and it is resurrection that makes Men wholly and permanently good: that is, wholly and permanently aligned-with, and in-harmony-with, God's creation and its purposes. 

And Heaven is the wholly-good mode of existence. 

In pre-mortal life, when we were spirits, we did not dwell in such a state of perfection. In that childhood of the spirit; those were good who obeyed God - and this obedience was unconscious and spontaneous.

Pre-mortal life is analogous to the goodness of a good young child; whose goodness consist in obedience to good parents.   

But while pre-mortal spirit life is good - it is not wholly-good. There is, to varying degrees, evil in all pre-mortal Mens' spirits - natural evil, from basic-selves; from their original nature as Beings who existed out-with divine creation; and from desires that are dissonant-with, and perhaps opposed-to, creation. 

Yet, while pre-mortal spirits are living in loving obedience to God; this evil is prevented expression. 

However, some pre-mortal spirits do not love God, disobey God, and leave the divine presence. These are the fallen angels or demons. 

Demons can be understood as pre-mortal spirits who initially dwell in the Heavenly state; but (sooner or later) reach a point that cannot obey God, and cannot live (even a unconsciously and passively) in obedience to God. 

They are (from their basic selves, in their original nature) so evil that it (sooner or later, perhaps quickly, or perhaps after some development of the spirit) breaks-through and demands expression. They do not love God enough to obey - probably, some are incapable of love altogether. 

This is analogous to a nasty, wicked young child of good parents; the wicked child desires to do evil things, and rejects the good instructions of his parents by refusing obedience. Or else the child does not love his parents and sees no reason to obey them. 

Or, in extreme situations; the child is incapable of, or excluding of, love; and knows of no reason why he should not do exactly what he wishes - if that is possible.  

We can imagine a demon as being like a child who (from some mixture of innate nature, and learning) becomes so evil that he runs away from the loving environment of his parental home, and perhaps joins a gang of like-minded thieves or murderers ... whatever enables him to enact his wicked desires. 

(This running-away is thus analogous to the fall of angels, to the emergence of demons.) 

Such a child's rejection of parental goodness does not require a conscious awareness of what he is rejecting. He makes his choice on the basis of what he most wants to do, and seeks to escape an environment that prevents him. He is 'in thrall' to sin.  

In sum; the contrast between the Heavenly life of unfallen pre-mortal spirits, and the Heaven of post-mortal resurrected Men; is that in pre-mortal life Men still have (to varying degrees) a disposition to evil. 

The spirits are only partly-good by nature, but behave with goodness because of (unconscious, spontaneous) obedience to God.  

Whereas, after resurrection, Men in Heaven have left-behind all their evil nature, all impulses towards sin (i.e. all inclinations to depart from the purpose and harmony of divine creation). 

Resurrected Men have been transformed to wholly-good inhabitants of that state of eternally-good heaven. This transformation must be chosen, must be assented-to - or else it cannot happen. 

Therefore the state of Heaven is one of wholly-good beings who are motivated only to do good; whereas the pre-mortal state is of partly-evil beings who (for so long as they remain in this state) behave with perfect goodness - yet not from inner motivation, but from obedience to God. 

There are therefore several choices here, with varying degrees of consciousness. 

The choice of a pre-mortal spirit to become a demon is largely un-conscious, and rooted in nature and desire. 

The choice of a pre-mortal spirit to move-on to mortal incarnation is more-conscious choice to embark on spiritual development towards greater consciousness; with the goal of making a permanent choice for or against resurrection. 

In other words; pre-mortal spirits who desire to become more like God (analogously to a child desiring to become more like his parents) want to grow-up; and enter mortal incarnated life; which is somewhat like the phase of adolescence between child- and adult-hood. 

(Presumably some pre-mortal spirits do not want to grow-up, do not incarnate, and remain in that Heavenly state.) 

And at the end of mortal incarnate life; comes the possibility of making a conscious permanent choice to become wholly-good (wholly God-aligned) and undergo the transformation of resurrection...

Or else of rejecting this. 

(I believe that - in principle, in some times and places - there are several possibilities for those who reject resurrection; but in this era, in The West, it seems that more-and-more of those who reject Heaven will instead choose Hell. At least, that is what they say, and what their behaviour indicates.)

The sequence is therefore a process of development, a maturation, a growing-up - through a series of choices; and the main change throughout (if the sequence goes according to God's wishes) is on of increasing consciousness of those choices.

If God just wanted good-behaviour from us; then the spontaneous, natural, passive obedience of pre-mortal spirit life would suffice. 

But God wants more! 

God desires that we grow-up to become our-selves more god-like; and part of this is making a conscious choice to align ourselves with divine creation; and to do so permanently by means of resurrection. 

Only after resurrection can we freely participate-in and contribute-to the work of creation; because then we will be wholly-good in terms of our alignment; such that all our creative activities will naturally and harmoniously contribute-to the eternal development of divine creation.  

Why should we be obedient to God?

Answer: because we are his children, and he is our loving Father.

We therefore know that God has our personal best interests at heart. It is God's love for us that is the reason why we should obey him.

In other words, obedience not the bottom-line, but God's Love is - obedience is justified in terms of love.

The other major monotheism is not based on God understood as a loving Father, but on an almighty God. The reason for obedience is God's absolute power - for them, obedience is the bottom-line. Obedience is justified in terms of supreme authority.

It is the difference between obedience to your own loving Father, and obedience to your Emperor.

*

"The philosophy of [the Fuhrerprinzip - leader-principle] is that each organisation is seen as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader... has absolute responsibility in his/her own area, and complete subordination.

"This idea was based on the function of military organisations where it is still used today.

"The notion behind the civil use of the Führerprinzip was that unquestioning obedience to superiors produces order and prosperity which would be shared by those deemed 'worthy'. Given the chaotic state of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1933, this philosophy of 'cutting through red tape' was regarded by many Germans as a welcome change to what they had endured earlier.

"This principle was the law of the Nazi party and later transferred onto the whole German society.

"Most notable changes include the replacement of elected local governments by appointed mayors and the cancellation of associations and unions, whose leaders were elected, and their replacement by mandatory associations whose leaders were appointed."

http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Fuhrerprinzip.html

*

Leaving aside the absurd and pejorative claim that 'unquestionaing obedience' has been or could ever be a principle of organization, the Fuhrerprincip [FP] has an different name: which is simply human leadership or leadership by humans: that is by individual persons.

And leadership by individual persons is the only form of leadership - anything else being control by non-humans processes.

The opposite of the FP, which we see around us everywhere in the modern world, is 'leadership' by committee vote - that is, 'leadership' not by humans but by whatever-happens-to-emerge-from an abstract process.

Which is not leadership at all.

And which involves the absolute subordination of humanity to bureaucracy.

*

Let's rewrite the former definition:

The philosophy of committee voting is that each organisation is seen as an hierarchy of committees, where every committee has absolute responsibility in its own area, and with complete subordination of lower committee decisions to the authority of higher committees.

This idea was based on the function of totalitarian state bureaucracies where it is still used today.

The notion behind the civil use of the committee vote principle was that unquestioning obedience to committee decisions produces order and prosperity which would be shared by those deemed 'worthy'.

Given its intrinsic tendency to generate and sustain work for themselves, this philosophy of 'creating ever more red tape' is regarded by many Leftists as a welcome change to what they had endured earlier.

This principle was the law of all mainstream democratic Leftist parties and later transferred onto the whole of Western society.

Most notable changes include the replacement of effective leaders (at every level and for every function) by committees.

*

What is interesting about the FP is that it was necessary to make it a principle, and to 'market' it (the Nazis being, initially, a mass populist party depending on mass popular support).

But of course what makes it necessary is the decades, now amounting to centuries, of propaganda for 'democracy' - that is, for choosing government by vote of a very large committee (of voters).

So in the modern world a committee of voters chooses a committee to govern it, and their policies are implemented by committees in public administration and - now - every aspect of life is regulated by committee vote which is (always and in every situation) regarded as morally superior to the individual.

*

How ironic that the only rational and efficient method of leadership is regarded as a creation of the Nazis! When it is actually, merely, the only rational and efficient method of leadership!

Of course, the trick is done by rhetoric, by the creation of straw men which automatically negate the rationality of common sense; such as 'absolute' responsibility and 'unquestioning' obedience.

This really means just responsibility and obedience; and naturally all complex human organizations are supposed to be organized on principle of responsibility and obedience - it is just that when decisions are made by committee vote the actuality is zero responsibility and obedience.

In a committee system, at most, there is only a patently unfair and arbitrary process of rewarding or scape-goating individuals for decisions which they did not make and which they could not control.

*

Might the Fuhrerprinzip make a comeback? To save the West from death by bureaucracy?

Indeed it might, because it is obviously superior as a principle of organization to committee voting; and obscuring this obviousness requires a vast and pervasive apparatus of propaganda which could, at any time, lose its effect and be usurped by spontaneous common sense.

And any Western society that did re-introduce 'the FP' (and replaced committees with individuals) would very rapidly be rewarded by a huge increase in power, efficiency and capability - as was Germany.

*

Why this almost certainly will not happen, does not happen, indeed why it has not already happened; provides an insight into what deeply wrong with the West at the level of functionality, and ultimately of spirituality.

*

There is a sense in which the nature (and history) of Christian churches hinges upon understanding the implications of command and commandment. There is a sense in which the Fourth Gospel (of 'John') amounts to a redefinition, a change in meaning, of command/ ment, and thereby of the nature of what Jesus intended to happen after his death.

If we focus on the use of command/ ment in the Gospel, we can see than the early Old Testament assumption about what this means is subverted by its usage, until it is gradually made clear that the OT assumptions of the Master-servant, Law-obedience model of the relation between God and Men; needs to be replaced by a new 'model'.

In a nutshell: obedience unfolds and is redefined through the course of the Gospel. As Jesus explains (really very clearly, with repetitions in different words) just how he wishes his followers to behave and how they should relate to him, and to each other.

The wishes of Jesus are actually very obvious; but also very different indeed from how 'things turned out'. 

12: 49-50 - For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.

This first mention of commanding sounds much like the OT Master-servant relationship - command means law, law implies obedience - blind obedience when the reason for command has not been understood. A top-down model. But...

14:15 and 21 - If ye love me, keep my commandments... He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

So far - what Jesus says is still compatible with the OT - but wait!... Jesus introduces love; and this ought to make us suspect something new and different is going on; because love is not something that can be 'commanded' in the sense of ordered: a command to love cannot be obeyed. One cannot (think about it...) rationally make a Law to love.

The simple fact that we cannot obey an order to love is (I think) obvious once pointed-out; but has failed to register because (it seems) that the Ancient Hebrews operationalised 'love' as 'obedience' - and people (apparently) ceased to notice that obedience isn't really love... 

But Jesus is about to change this. What that fact of not-commandable-love means is that the first and primary two commandments - to love God and neighbour - cannot be 'commands' in the sense in which people usually tend to understand them. The concept of 'command' being used must be different from 'order' - and this is made clear later in the Fourth Gospel. 

From Chapter 15: 12-17 - This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love...

Here is Jesus's new understanding of what command means. To 'abide in love' means something like a harmony of purpose, based on mutual love. And this is clarified by Jesus telling the disciples explicitly that their relation is one of loving friends and Not of Master and servant; that they are not supposed to obey blindly without comprehension - but that he will provide the understanding that is necessary for the disciples to obey from loving harmony of purpose.  

Jesus is asking for love, faith, trust, friendship and loyalty - all of which is distinct from the obedience of a servant due to his Master. Duty may be ordered - but love cannot. 

Therefore, a man must want to be a member of Jesus's 'family'. The community of Jesus's followers is being envisaged as a group of mutually loving friends who mutually love Jesus - that is, as a Christian family, a family of Christians - whose harmony of purpose derives-from this love. And the disciples are specifically told that the proper relationship is not any more to be in the old command-and-obey; Master-and-servant form.

As things happened, a Christian Church was formed, a legalistic organisation based on the assumption that love could be commanded in the sense of being ordered by a Master, and that people could and should obey (if necessary, without comprehension) - like servants.

But it certainly looks as if Jesus went to considerable lengths to explain that this was not what he wanted from his disciples - and that he envisaged his followers as cohering like a family, not as an organisation (legally regulated); growing-from loving personal relationships and a high vision of (family-like) friendship.

Jesus seems to be instructing his discples to discard the OT Master-servant, order-obey, uncomprehending, legalistic relationship; and for it to be replaced by a harmony of purpose, based-on loving friendship, knowedge of Jesus (provided to each individually by the Holy Ghost) - and presumably 'enforced' by mutual loyalty (rather than duty) deriving from the characteristic loyalty among loving family members.


Note: from the above one can certainly see why it was decided to demote the Fourth Gospel to a subsidiary and dependent role - implicitly inferior to the Synoptics and Pauline Epistles. Because when I regard the Fourth Gospel as the most authoritative source on Jesus's life and teachings, and read it in isolation, it does seem to contradict a lot of what has come to be taken for granted - and presumably that fact or problem was noticed by the compilers of the Bible and early scholars - who decided implicitly to disregard the internal evidence of the primacy of the Fourth Gospel, in favour of embedding it in a mosaic of other authors.

They may have been getting 'carried away' and overstating things for rhetorical effect; but Christian's have quite often stated that obedience and surrender to God's will are the primary Christian virtues. But this is wrong; these are clearly the wrong words, the wrong concepts.

Obedience, surrender, submission to divine will is, indeed, apparently the primary virtue for Muslims; but not for Christians.

Men are sons and daughters of God; that is, children who are intended to grow-up; and, from the work and gift of Jesus Christ, we have the possibility of becoming divine and attaining life eternal. 

Christians need to distinguish what is appropriate for children, and early stages of development - by contrast with God's main purpose underlying creation. Ultimately; good needs to be chosen, not obeyed; actively-embraced not passively-followed.

In this, as in most things, Jesus is the example for Men. 

God's plan and project of creation needs to be understood, and each needs to affiliate with it. The ultimate aim is a alliance between Man and God; with Man raised to the level of divine. Obedience is, at most, a phase en route to this ideal - a developmental means towards the end of grown-up virtue.

Meanwhile, obedience and surrender to God's will may be necessary at specific times and places - but if it is implied that this is the end as well as the means - then we are misrepresenting the whole divine creation, and making Christianity incoherent - or else implying that the creation is a botched job.

Such incoherence of argument has become very obvious to modern Men, so by over-emphasising obedience (perhaps on grounds of immediate expedience), the cause of Christianity may well be impaired. 

This is one reason why theosis - the voluntary development of Men toward ultimate divinity - ought to be given a much greater, central, place in the primary description of Christianity (as it is in the Fourth Gospel).

It seems to me that one of the toughest lessons of the 2020 global totalitarian coup, with its assimilation of the churches, has been to emphasize the failure of discernment of many of those Christians who lived the most exemplary lives of obedience to what might be termed 'Gospel precepts' (i.e. those behaviours most associated with being-a-good-Christian).

Plenty of those people whose actually-achieved lives were most completely in-line with the commandments, rules, and principles of good living - and the denominations/ churches that most strictly enforce such behaviours; have enthusiastically bought-into the birdemic-peck strategy of evil; as well as endorsing some or all of the major ideological planks of Satanic Leftism - such as antiracism, CO2 climate-change-environmentalism, the poverty-industry and socialism.

From which I infer that the major motivation for traditional 'Christian good behaviour' was conscientious obedience to external social pressures; not goodness of heart. 

In other words, too-many well-behaved people are only 'good' because they obediently follow the rules and practices of their chosen social group. And when that social group is assimilated to the agenda of evil; then these well-behaved people continue to obey their leaders. 

In most instances, therefore, 'good behaviour' is only skin deep - good behaviour is, indeed, easier and more likely, the less a man is personally and actively motivated - and the more he is merely externally and passively obedient. 

Are such people Christians at all? 

Only if there is more to their exemplary adherence to Gospel precepts than obedience; only when passive obedience to social pressure is subordinated to guidance by intuitive knowledge of God's providence and to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. 

Post-2020 experience has demonstrated that when 'Christian life' is in practice reducible to the most perfect obedience to any external 'authority' (institution, organization, person); then such life is an empty simulacrum of Christianity. 

A well-programmed android, or brainwashed shell-of-a-man could do as much. 

This harsh lesson is unavoidable; since all actual and possible Christian groups are already assimilated to the evil Global System, in process of such 'convergence', or else vulnerable to it.   

Sooner or later every Christian will be confronted by the absolute need for personal discernment (individually motivated, based upon direct knowledge of the divine) to be applied to external authority of whatever kind.  

Such are these End Times. 

And in this situation; qualities of temperament such as conscientiousness, deference and obedience - which in the past enabled someone to be an exemplar of Christian living - will now tend to lead them across to the dark side. 

 

*

It seems likely that our society has been, is being, led into corruption.

This is not to absolve those-who-are-led from responsibility - clearly they should not follow evil leaders.

And these evil leaders are almost everywhere - found in all large and powerful organizations. Not necessarily dominant, not always in a majority, but having a very significant effect.

*

This, of course, applies to the institutional church (to all the institutional churches - when they are large and powerful).

Again and again we perceive that the fish is rotting from the head down.

Again and again we perceive that the best people are almost-never at the top of institutions, but can rise no higher than the middle.

*

This does mean that teachings based on obedience require at least modification. If our primary ethic is obedience then we will be led into the abyss.

Is obedience a sufficient excuse for a Christian to follow church leaders wherever they may take you? Probably not.

At least, I do not detect that obedience should be the primary virtue - a virtue to which Love, Courage and all the other virtues ought to be sacrificed.

*

It is an apparent paradox of traditionalists living in an age of change that they assert the necessity of hierarchy yet are themselves insubordinate.

But (although insubordination may be due to pride or other sins) it is not necessarily a paradox - merely recognition that there are more important things than obedience, and that disobedience is sometimes necessary.

*

Indeed, surely disobedience is more-and-more necessary to Christian reactionaries all the time?

Surely obedience is, nowadays, more often an excuse, than a virtue?

To develop a habit of disobedience to the leadership but without becoming consumed by spiritual pride - that is where the habitual nature of the thing may be helpful - that seems to be something like the task before us.

To assume that the leadership is wrong about most things most of the time and should therefore habitually be disobeyed; but that sometimes they may be right about some things and sometimes we should go along with what they want...

*

There is a sense in which all Christians have always practiced "discernment". 

That is, Christians could only seldom - and never continuously - live in complete and perfect obedience to The Church (whatever that church might be). Because the situations of life are specific, while rules are general; and because there was always a degree (sometimes a very large degree) of disunity (or at least ambiguity) among the statements and instructions of church authorities. 

So people might not know exactly what to do, and would need to make up their own minds; or people would have to decide who to obey when contradictory instructions were given - and so forth. 

But this kind of discernment acknowledged that ultimately - legitimate authority lay externally from each Man - in the church - mediated by the church, not the individual person; and that therefore discernment was being used to discover the true nature of that authority. 

The core purpose of ancient unity was a life of obedience. 

This ancient kind of discernment was essentially passive and partly unconscious - indeed, it had something of the quality of an 'unfortunate necessity'. Ideally, as little discernment as possible would be necessary in life - because church guidance was clear and unified, and people would be naturally obedient. 

And when life did not change much from one generation to another: such an ideal could be approached closely. 

Indeed, the ideal of ancient discernment was to forget itself, and to assume that the Christian life was a life of simple obedience to the church; unchanging and clear guidance for in navigating-through the recurrent, repeating, problems of human life. 

At all costs, awareness of the discernment of individual persons was not supposed to extend to a sense of active responsibility for one's salvation and conducting life. The desired discernment was externally-directed, towards discovering the true-source of guidance within the church - and was not striving to be self-aware.   

The consciousnesses of modern Men are differently constituted; and this affects both laymen and priests, those within and outside the churches: all churches.

Overwhelmingly; Modern Man experiences himself (whether he likes it or not) as starting from the situation of being cut-off from the institutions of his society. His condition is one of alienation.

He no longer takes institutions for granted, can no longer un-consciously follow their guidance, can no longer actually-be passive and obedient merely. 

This alienation, cut-offness, is now simply taken for granted as the basis of our society, in multiple forms of discourse. It does not need arguing - it is just assumed as a situation, as a problem. 

Life is experienced as choices; and these choices impinge on consciousness - we choose and are aware that we choose. 

Such awareness permeates modern discourse - it is the subject matter of the vast bulk of modern stories and narratives - such that we simply take it for granted. Yet to experience life as multiple choices is recent, modern; and was not an aspect of ancient human life (except maybe for a very few exceptional individuals). 

What this modern consciousness means is that the ancient discernment is not possible. 

I would also argue that ancient discernment is not desirable either; that ancient discernment is now "not a good thing" - but the fact of its impossibility is one reason why striving for it is not desirable.

But what we have nowadays instead of ancient discernment is self-blinding and dishonesty. In other words people who claim to be anciently-discerning are actually obscuring their own acts of conscious discernment (perhaps by not-thinking, by distraction, by projection...) - or else they know they are consciously discerning but lie about the fact - maybe for exploitative, maybe for manipulative reasons.   

At the very least; ancient discernment is nowadays something chosen, rather than something spontaneous; it is something we are aware or doing (or, more often, as aspiring to do) rather than something so natural that it Just Happens. 

What Romantic Christianity does is to recognize the change in consciousness; and to assume (from an understanding of world history, and the nature of the divine plan) that this change was of-God. 

In other words; modern man's consciousness is different because (and in so far as) God wants it that way - for our own good, for the good of our actual, specific souls; as these were incarnated into this mortal life. 

God wants for us to make conscious choices, and to know we are doing so: and to take responsibility for doing so! 

God does not want for us not-to-think, to distract or suppress awareness; to pretend that 'nothing has happened' and that the religious life Now is the same as for a Catholic peasant in the Christian-permeated (no-alternatives) societies of the Middle Ages. 

God does not want us to be dishonest with ourselves or with others - even (especially!) when this dishonesty is self-justified as a "necessary lie" for the public good... Does not want that we try and pretend that our Christian life can be, or is; one of 'simple obedience' to a church whose ultimate goodness and authority should simply be taken for granted. 

Surely? God wants for us to be honest: therefore wants us to be honest about our situation - and honest that it is what it is. 

Nowadays discernment is far more necessary, more frequent; and far more conscious - than ever in the past; and this Just Has overturned the earlier ideal of the Christian life as being one of passive, unconscious, self-forgetful obedience to an external institution - A Church.  

We now actually-have (like it or not) an active role in chiseling-out our own path through life. We are aware of being personally responsible for many discernments about which we could, in the past, have been unconscious. 

Our situation is what it is, our discernment ought to be active, we should take full responsibility for the necessary and frequent choices of Christian living, and we should strive-for, and explicitly acknowledge, the fullest-possible consciousness of all this! 

That is perhaps one fundamental assumption of "Romantic Christianity": deliberately taking conscious and personal responsibility for that which - in the past - were often matters of obedience to an external (ideal) institution.  

When I became a Christian aged 49; under the influence of CS Lewis and following his advice, I simply joined the nearest Church of England congregation, and immediately arranged to be confirmed (I had been baptised as a child).

To help confirmation I joined a discussion group at another CoE church down the road.


At this point I simply accepted that being a Christian meant joining, and pledging obedience to, some church or another; so that whatever I was asked to promise in the confirmation ceremony must be right. Anywhere I disagreed, I must change, and it was my job to work towards church doctrine.

So I found no problem in making the confirmation oaths.

Nowadays, I could not do this; partly because I was very quickly forced into discernment among the profoundly disagreeing, mutually hostile, factions of the Church of England, with the two churches I was attending being on opposite and hostile sides.


(This was very fortunate; because in most places in England all Church of England congregations are on the anti-Christian side; I was lucky enough to have a real Christian Anglican church within a mile of my home.)


This situation of 'my' two churches being on opposite sides of the battle, meant that I personally needed to discern (as a matter of urgency) which side was right and which was wrong. I could not be guided by passive obedience to any external standard without prejudging the issue of whose guidance to follow. Even the theological authorities I selected for guidance disagreed on the litmus test issues. It had to be my decision.


Eventually, this worked-through into my realisation that all conscious Christian faith in modern circumstances just-is based-on individual discernment; which means that the nature of Christian life is not what I used to assume.

When Christian life is based-upon (rooted-in) at least one, major and defining, act of individual discernment; then this means that individual discernment has greater authority than any specific and actual church.

This is an unavoidable fact (under modern conditions), and not an assertion.


And as such, it seems to me that we are all required to use individual discernment in our personal Christian life as much as possible; rather than (as is usual) trying to deny it, and trying to pretend that we are merely living in obedience to external authority.

To put it another way, and despite the many pitfalls and dangers of this path; modern Christians ought-to-be explicit that their primary beliefs derive from a direct relationship with God; and not, therefore, from obedience to any particular institution, denomination, Church.


Of course, developing individual discernment in relation to any specific issue takes time and effort; therefore it is an ongoing process, never completed. And in the meantime we will probably want to make a discernment that 'X' (e.g. a church, a pastor, an author...) is a reasonable source of guidance which we will obey (passively, as it were) for the time-being.

But eventually, Modern Man seems to be called to a Christian faith in which the goal is to test and discern each element for our-selves. And a specific, actual, church or Christian group may help this process - may help it a lot. On the other hand, as with the church I first joined, an actual church may confuse, mislead and corrupt the Christian.

Much depends on local conditions. 

Most people need a group of some sort in order to function in society; but better no congregation than a false church - better a few, perhaps scattered, companions in Christ, than attempted-obedience to a large and powerful bureaucracy whose leadership are strategically net-evil.


Note: This post is, in part, a response to an ongoing discussion at the blog Dark Brightness (which I read regularly, and would recommend). 

I added a further clarification of my position:

My concern is that, in these end times, our psychological need for membership of a group may overwhelm our spiritual need for a *Christian* church; it may be the major temptation, and may be the reason why the devout are perhaps especially vulnerable to Antichrist (as implied by some Biblical prophecies).

It seems that our only defence is to discern well, to learn and practise discernment, and to trust our best and most solid discernment over external authority (*despite* the obvious hazards and dangers of this...)

One thing that has changed a lot since the last major Western Christian revival (i.e. that of the 1939-45 World War); which is that a modern Christian must be far more personally motivated - and, where that necessary motivation is to be 'found' is not susceptible of a single, general, socially-applicable answer. 

Seventy years ago CS Lewis was able to write about Christianity in a way that pretty much rejected mysticism and personal spirituality; because the Western churches were still sufficiently strong that a Christian could focus mainly on obedience to church rules and teachings. It was, in other words, still possible to be a (mostly) passive Christian.

This was never a very good kind of Christian to be - it is, indeed, pretty strongly against the basic nature of the faith; and if a religion based upon obedience is what is wanted, then other religions do this much better than Christianity ever could. Christianity's most formidable rival is very clear about what is required of its adherents, and although difficult, this is finite and do-able - but those Christians who see their faith in such terms are flying in the face of its nature, and swimming against the current.  

Anyway, nowadays the passive Christians have mostly ceased to be Christians; and the traditionalists who yearn for a return to obedience-based faith sound less convincing with every year; and soon will become unable to convince even themselves.


This is because we cannot be motivated to obedience when the church has become (substantially) just another branch of the global careerist political bureaucracy.

Labile dishonest bureaucracy may be a sufficient motivator when it is paying you a salary, but otherwise it is not the kind-of-thing that inspires motivation - and certainly not the kind of thing to inspire loyalty.

One cannot be loyal to something impersonal and always changing; the greatest loyalty is to that which is loved and respected, which has integrity and reliability: that which lasting and strong (apparently permanent) .

One can only be strongly loyal and obedient to something that is (pretty much) the opposite of a modern, faceless, arbitrary, petty bureaucracy that most churches have become. Churches are - here, now, mostly - manned by a rotating cast of despicables: cowards, placemen, drones, incompetents, showmen and psychopaths.


Therefore, although I can certainly understand and empathise with the desire of Christian traditionalists for a simple faith characterised by obedience and loyalty; they have-found, they will and shall continue-to-find, that as Christians they Cannot Do It.

They will not be able to generate and maintain motivation to believe, obey and be loyal to the kind of organisation that the modern churches have become.

And if such people want to be or remain Christian, they will have to seek motivation that actually works. Which requires (to some significant extent), to seek the divine within themselves - by whatever means is effective.

And that means mysticism.

The history of whether people are - or are meant to be - essentially the same, or essentially different, is a matter of metaphysical assumptions and cannot be determined from observations and evidence -- although observations and evidence may be more, or less, consistent with the metaphysics - in different times and places. 

(Men and women, and people of different ages, have always and everywhere been regarded as qualitatively different, at least in this mortal life - until 'officially' the-day-before-yesterday, in a few Western nations...)

From what I can gather of hunter-gatherer spirituality; they regard each person as different and unique; because an unique combination of ancestors (and perhaps animal spirits). 

This is how I feel about people, 'instinctively', spontaneously. Each person that I get to know seems to be unique, with resemblances. There are, for instance, distinct likenesses between my mother, sister, and daughter - such that they are obviously relatives and have an (hereditary, presumably) affinity; but each is a very different person. 

So, from this perspective, everybody is primarily an unique individual - but some people have secondary, more-superficial similarities. 

In this primal set-up; we assume difference; and explain similarity. For example, similarities may be explained in terms of innate attributes (intelligence, personality, size, strength...), heredity, or having had similar experience. 

Traditional religions in agriculturally-based societies posit a very different set-up, however. Such societies tend to regard groups of human beings as having an essentially-identical nature, and from this assumption of sameness they explain differences. 

This goes-with - although not entailed by - the idea that souls are created from nothing at conception - i.e. because souls come into life with no baggage, it is easy to think of souls as starting-out this mortal life identically; only gathering differences throughout life. 

All people may be regarded as essentially the same in origin, or they may be divided into groups such us Us and Them, or castes - aristocrats and peasants, for instance. 

Perhaps more exactly, in agrarian society there is an ideal of sameness. 

For instance; all priests, or all members of a religion, or all citizens of a nation, may have an ideal type toward which they are encouraged to strive; and from which departures are disapproved, and perhaps punished.  

In such religion; it is often stated or implies that Men are created the same, and differences emerge later; and again in the afterlife there is either an identical state for everyone (Sheol, Hades), or else categories of particular people (Valhalla for warriors, saved and damned) within-which there is a single ideal type. 

Traditional Christian Heaven is often depicted and imagined as containing hosts of angels, and of the saved, with little or no differentiation between the individuals - as if ideal Men have returned to a primal and intended sameness. 

In modern society there is an incoherent mess on this issue, as about most things of importance; and I will not attempt to summarize the contradictory nonsense that constitute feminism, or the official views of homosexuality, or the transagenda. 

These are all destructively-motivated power ploys and PSYOPS - not attempts to describe reality. 

In brief, modern society demands total sameness - but the sameness demanded varies according to time and situation. On Tuesday race divisions may be treated as mandatorily homogeneous and primary, but by Thursday it may be about the need for sameness among (biological) men and women - while by Sunday the demand for sameness may related to chosen-identity of men and women.

Overlaps and contradictions between mandatory beliefs are ignored, because the requirement is for obedience to arbitrary whim. More more obviously arbitrary and dishonest the requirement for obedience; the more deeply corrupting such obedience will be - which is the purpose behind it.   

What is important is that - at each momentary demand to regard X and Y as the same - there be total-obedience to the asserted opinion. 

I regard the fundamental truth to be that we are all different in origin and as far back as we existed (which is eternally), and sameness is something either imposed or achieved. 

In traditional society sameness was mostly imposed; and in modern society likewise, with respect to those areas in which the rulers wish the masses to be the-same: eg in terms of obedience to Litmus Test issues.

The situation is that difference ought to be taken for granted, because it is innate; yet at the same time both traditional and modern societies depend on treating groups as de facto identical. So there is an innate tension.   

The modern idea of wanting to be, and displaying, personal difference; is a consequence of society imposing sameness on what are in fact fundamentally-unique individuals - and this desire typically emerges at adolescence, when the child is psychologically detaching from parental control. 

The adolescent therefore feels this innate tension between actual individuality and imposed uniformity most keenly. 

In traditional societies the adult role is more of an externally-imposed 'stereotype' then childhood; and innate individuality rebels against this artificial uniformity. Adolescence is a short phase during which the child is channeled into one or another of the 'uniform' and finite adult roles, as demanded by society. 

Modern ideology pretends to support individuality against this channeling, but actually demands uniformity on key (destructive) issues. The stereotypical roles have been subverted, demonized, and indeed eliminated. 

The consequence is a psychological state of perpetual adolescence - with all the contradictions that implies. The adolescent cannot grow-up, and doesn't want to.   

   

So we get the result that all means of large-scale and and coordinated societal organization tend to - indeed must, operationally-speaking - treat individuals as groups, as categories, as all-the-same. But underneath this is the experienced fact that - when we get to know people - they are all essentially different!

People then feel that they need to assert individuality; and (since these are social-functions) the asserted individuality gets channeled into a finite range of fixed categories...

Leading to the absurdity of standardized patterns of 'rebellion', standard 'rebellious' fashions and behaviours - yet all being claimed as 'self'-expression!

*

I find that I continually need to remind myself that we are all unique individuals, and that therefore - in an ultimate and spiritual sense - we each will have an unique destiny in a world created by God, our loving parents - who regard us each as uniquely as all good parents do of their children. 

A good parent does not want all his or her children to end-up as identical; but for each to fulfill his or her own specific destiny. 

A good family is not held-together by externally imposed uniformity; but by he mutual love of its members, all pointing towards the same loving future in harmony with God's creation. 

We begin and (after resurrection) end as real, unique, individuals; and Heavenly harmony is an achieved product of love - not a state of of imposed uniformity. 

Of course, the defects and practicalities of life on earth mean that this ideal is not attainable on a large scale, or permanently. 

Nonetheless, the ultimate reality of individuality is worth remembering, and that harmonious cooperation of individuals is something striven-for not spontaneous... 

But that the harmony of love is a higher, and happier and more creative, form of cooperation that the imposition of sameness.

We can thus experience Heaven on earth - but not permanently nor continuously. But that experience can (and should) motivate us towards inhabiting Heaven after death.      

Our starting point (here-and-now) is a society of demotivation - because this is a 'materialist' society that understands all human existence to be bounded by birth and death, and ultimate reality to be without purpose or meaning. 

Of course we are demotivated! We live only for this life and only for pleasures and to avoid pain! 

Hence we are cowards, hence easily manipulated. 

Modern Men continue to function and to work; but lacking any sense of coherence their wills are passive. They are easy to manipulate both because they lack any deep or sustained motivations of-themselves; and this makes them crave external authority and imperatives. 

Modern Man does not want to choose with responsibility; because he is deeply insecure, incoherent, demotivated - thus he seeks to know "what I must do". 

He seeks to discover situations in which he can tell himself "there is no alternative". 

Only when there is "no alterative" can his feeble motivation be aroused; only then can he lose-himself in something he feels to be both objectively real, and bigger his own drifting desires. 

Modern man is therefore the buck-passer par excellence! 

Mass Man seeks to pass the buck of responsibility; and those who work to administer and rule the large human institutions do likewise.

Everybody, up to the 'highest' level of power that we can see (e.g. multi-national, national and corporate leaders), tries to pass-on that buck of deep and personal responsibility - they think and do because "there is no alternative" - never because they personally so choose, from their deepest selves. 

If you work in any bureaucracy - and the whole world is now one giant composite-linked bureaucracy - you will seek in vain for anyone who freely chooses, who acknowledges his own agency. Bureaucracy is a world in which 'authority' comes from obeying somebody else.    

The mainstream religions all play-into this passing of the buck. They exert their authority as being agents of the necessary, the unavoidable, what Must Be. Their 'leaders' defer to the authority of some committee, some vote, some external abstraction...

And therefore, in practice - and since 2020 very obviously - the mainstream religions slot-into the hierarchy of buck-passing. 

Mainstream religions are about believing somebody else - religions are become bureaucracies of belief; thus they complement and pseudo-validate the bureaucratic world of obeying somebody else. 

So, in this world we dwell in a vast system of obedience and denial of responsibility - but at the same time we see greater uniformity of propaganda and ideology than ever before. We have a global totalitarianism - vast monitoring, censorship, control, coercion - yet no (visible) global dictator. 

No dictator, no supreme committee; yet in in such a world as we inhabit to exist, where everybody claims to obey somebody else - we can see that everybody is also clearly obeying some-thing! 

That some-thing which The System obeys is not explicit, cannot precisely be identified - nobody even claims to be IT. There are no picture of IT, no speeches, no statements from IT...

Yet there must-be an IT. 

And of course there is, and it is Satan.

...Which explains why every global strategy or belief-complex, every world-wide obsession or motivation propagated by mass media and official channels, is always evil. 

The people seek to be led, and their leader seek to be led; the buck is passed onward and upwards until eventually is reached  - one who is not human, nor a person, and not embodied.

One who has no interest in being known or identified as The Leader; and every reason for keeping this fact secret.

(Except, presumably, from his most devoted and loyal servants - whose obedience is so total as to amount to possession.)  

Suddenly it makes sense! Suddenly we see where we end-up when everybody absolutely refuses to take personal responsibility for ultimate beliefs and aspirations; and when the churches do likewise. 

It was made clear enough to Christians at the very beginning that each would need to made a free choice from-himself, and would not be able to rely upon external authority - whether secular or religious - for ultimate guidance. 

Yet Christianity was instead made into a machine of imperatives - a System of what-must-be and cannot-be-otherwise. And - above all - obedience to these imperatives was required of Christians. 

Our come-uppance is that this machine of obedience and buck-passing has now been taken-over, subverted, and integrated into the global machine - The System.

So that all external obedience now converges upon Satan. 

The buck stops with Satan; and nearly-all the world (including the churches) agrees that this is as things should be. 

I find that very few people can hold in their minds the scale of lying that is afoot in the world today. It is a fact that the major "Litmus Test" strategies and policies that dominate the world are founded upon lies, and constructed of lies.

And, for a Christian, the evident purpose of this wholesale narrative of lies, is to sustain a system of value-inversion, which - if adopted - will lead Men actively to choose damnation and reject salvation. 

So why do so many people who describe themselves as Christian, so strongly believe these narratives of evil-motivated lies?

One of the current major Litmus Tests issues is the war between the Fire Nation and The West; a war that has been created and sustained by a narrative of lies from The West. 

This is already World War III - in terms of the totality of conflict, but so far the specifically military aspect has a relatively restricted scope (albeit far bigger than any Europe-adjacent conflict since WWII). 

But major players in the Western-dominated Global Establishment - both in politics and the mass media - are repeatedly using violent provocations supported by gross and systematic lies, in the attempt to escalate and spread the fighting war, and to trigger a nuclear exchange (which would almost certainly and rapidly escalate to full-on). 

By my understanding, this is a very real, continuing, and intermittently acute threat. Those in high places - and there seem to be many of them, perhaps especially in control positions of the mass media - who do everything possible to prepare an irreversible momentum towards global nuclear destruction; have not given-up their attempts, and these attempts grow bolder and shriller, the manipulative lies more reckless and blatant... 

Yet many people continue to believe them; and by believing supporting their agenda. 

So far as I can tell, most people believe official-media lies - either in whole, as an overall framework of understanding; or at least they believe each specific lie initially - only to be abandoned much later, and reluctantly. 

Even when blatant, and blatantly-evil, lies are propagated by the entirety of the Western politicians and media and then exposed as lies the next day; basic trust in the system is not demolished. 

The next set of coordinated evil lies will be believed over and again, month after month and year after year - regardless of how many and how big the previous known lies of the same people. 

What we are dealing with here is a root-ethic of loyalty and obedience; as implicitly the primary value of a person's life. 

When someone is ruled by loyalty; then he will always take his chosen side in any dispute, and will believe his side; until conclusively proven otherwise - and even then he will regard lies as specific rather than evidence of an evil disposition. 

The loyal individual will put the best possible slant on dishonesty; and will explain lies as being well-motivated; or, at least, for-the-best overall, ultimately. 

This seems to be a deep human disposition. 

We all take sides, and the choice of sides then shapes all further discourse. 

Thus the discernment of sides, and between sides, becomes crucial; and the evaluation of good and evil between sides will define which side we ourselves will take in the spiritual war of this world. 

For the mainstream, secular materialist left; this is easy. Such a person (whatever mainstream 'party' he sides with - because all the mainstream is on the same side in the spiritual war) will overall be on the side of the globalist establishment; and will therefore operate on an assumption of belief in their narrative of lies - whether that be with respect to the Fire Nation war, Climate Emergency/ Green-environmentalism, transagenda and other sexual issues, antiracism, mass immigration, the birdemic-peck - or whatever major Establishment strategy is being pushed. 

(Even when someone dissents from one or two of the major agenda items - so long as he agrees with even one of them, he is recruited a member of team-evil - expanding his participation from this wedge issue.)

Christians are in the same position. As of 2022; a Christian must take sides, and try to discern the side of Good. Even if he believes that he rejects the Globalist-Left agenda - he may still be ensnared by loyalty to his Church. 

In practice, for many Christians, their primary Christian identity entails loyalty to his chosen Church, and an ethic of obedience to that Church. 

And when his chosen Church is itself 'converged' (as evidenced by de facto institutional support of one or more of the Litmus Test policies), that Church is a part-of the global system of evil...

Then the 'Christian' will find himself on the side of evil. 

And this is why So Very Many "Christians" believe So Much of the narratives of lies. 

Since the overall ethic of loyalty/ obedience is dominant in our natures; this means that the institutionally-loyal Christian will be loyal and obedient to the side of evil. 

This explains how it is that so many Christians reflexly believe the systemic-lies of politicians, the mass media, and the major social institutions (law, science, medicine, police/military, education etc). And when they (typically reluctantly) discover and acknowledge lies; regard the lies as exceptions - or justified by Good Intentions...

In these End Times, and characteristic of them; Christian loyalty and obedience to Churches - to any Church - will lead Christians to self-chosen damnation. It's happening all around us, all the time. 

But if not, then what? 

If not churches, and if we accept that the primary ethic is one of taking sides; then to what should Christians be loyal and obedient? 

The answer to that lies in the individual Christian's power of discernment, and willingness to use that power; to discover the two sides in the spiritual war, and to discover who serves each of the sides - and only to be loyal to those Men and other Beings on the side of Good. 

If the Christian lives in The West; using such discernment, he will discover that all institutions are corrupted substantially and increasingly, and that he should not, therefore, be loyal to any institution; including not loyal to any Church. 

In practice; this means that the Western Christian's primary loyalty and obedience must reach beyond this world and mortal life. 

The answer to "then what?" is as simple as that - the difficult thing is to act upon it; and against centuries of contrary convictions that - until these End Times - served Christians pretty-well. 

But That was Then; This is Now.

Trust is a proximate matter. 

There are those who say they 'trust the science' but what they are proximately doing is trusting the mass media, and government officials. They know nothing of the ultimate that is 'science'.

Indeed, even professional and credentialled 'scientists' are not 'science' - since scientist (for several decades) is just a job; a job in which you are not evaluated by truth-seeking or exact truthfulness; and where all the modern incentives are in the direction of (deniable) exaggeration, hype, spin, selective distortion; money-making ability ('grantmanship'), careerism and conformity to bureaucracy. 

 

Or, if you are a Christian - who actually do you trust? The church in an ultimate sense... yes, but proximately there is massive and deep disagreement between churches, subdivisions of churches, even within your chosen church's sub-division; and between that church now, and in the past... 

And your exposure to any teaching of the past comes via understanding the communications of the present - indeed via a few very specific conduits who are not, themselves, 'the church'.

Reflection will show that you actually-have, your-self, already-chosen from among many various available 'church' possibilities - even as you claim (to yourself, probably to others) that you are 'simply obeying the teachings of the church'.  

And the same applies (mutatis mutandis) to those who shelter behind an assertion of mere-obedience to the authority of tradition, the Bible, theology, or Any Other external authority. 

 

(On top of all this is the - surely undeniable by now? - gross corruption of the churches - their assimilation to the mainstream secular agenda - such as (any one of, because one will suffice to corruopt) birdemic-healthism, antiracism, climate change, the sexual revolution, open-borders mass migration and egalitarianism. Mere obedience to any church that is thus corrupt, and has therefore substantially joined the side of The Enemy, is surely liable to lead to damnation more often than salvation?)

What these times are asking of Christians seems to be an acknowledgment of this actual fact of our personal discernment; demanding we cease to shelter-behind the evasion of personal responsibility that is an assertion of 'obedience' to a 'church' who you, personally, have in fact either selected, or else selectively-accepted.  

Again: To assert passive obedience to an authority which you deny having personally selected, is a dishonest evasion. 

...Hence, it should be needless to say: UnChristian.

*

The traditional Christian idea was (perhaps) that celibates (the unmarried, the single) ought to be ascetic - disciplined, regulated, self-denying of pleasure - and that such a life was (for most people) best done by living in community, under discipline.

The modern idea is pretty much the opposite: that singles in a sense ought to live lives of self-indulgence, pleasure maximization, willfulness - and that the single ought ideally to be autonomous, live alone, without discipline or constraint.

*

So, the 'college' for the residential education of young people has gone from being an ascetic 'monastic' institution to an hedonic institution - a complete reversal.

*

Asceticism used to be the highest ideal of holiness; yet it makes no sense to most people nowadays - it seems almost perverse.

Christianity is about theosis, sanctity, holiness - conformity to an external standard - and humans are seen as intrinsically prone to sin; hence the necessity of groupishness to save people from themselves.

Modernity is about self-development: asceticism gets in the way of this, the ideal is freedom of the individual will. Even when the individual will leads to misery, depravity and destruction - this outcome is accepted (even celebrated) since no higher goal than untrammelled self-expression can be imagined.

*

Moderns can hardly stand the idea of life without the distraction and anaesthesia of unconstrained and open-ended self-indulgence.

*

And modernity in its characteristic form of bureaucracy has made the collegial idea almost impossible, since authority is now a committee.

Spiritually, obedience to a committee is qualitatively different from obedience to a person: obedience to a committee is necessarily merely yielding one's will to superior force, while obedience to a person can be an act of love.

*

If there is to be a repentance - the revival of the broadly 'monastic' ideal of ascetic, disciplined and communal living for the unmarried will surely be a part of it.

*

Almost all traditional religion was extremely "high-volume". By this I mean that there was an enormous amount of stuff that the 'faithful' adherent was supposed to know and do...

Rituals to memorize; books to read, learn, and be able to expound; a yearly round of festivals; parable, stories, proverbs; songs; codes of dress and wearing of symbols; multiple social obligations and privileges... 

The list is literally endless, because no matter how much you have done, there is always more that you could - and probably should - be doing.  

High-volume ("H-V") religion was therefore the norm. It is what traditional religions wanted from their adherents, it is what their adherents wanted from their religions... 

Traditionally, adherents wanted a whole world of religion, as and when they ask for it. They wanted a Big religion that always has something to say, and never runs out of things to do. 

And the religious institutions and authorities want the same - and this synergy led to the power of longevity of Great Religions of the past. 

However; the problem with high-volume religion is that it is inevitably passive - passive overall and on average. 

HV- R is inevitably orientated (ultimately) towards obedience - and that obedience must necessarily mostly be uncomprehending. 

The adherent, even the priest; is required to believe everything, do everything including the mass-majority of what he does not understand - and nobody understands everything. 

This uncomprehending passivity is inevitable with H-V religion and therefore obedience is the most highly valued among all attributes; insisted upon by the religious regulatory practices.

Because in practice human ability and motivation cannot absorb masses of stuff, and learn elaborate practices - while also evaluating that stuff and discerning which is valid and necessary, and determining what is core and what peripheral. 

When a religion has become really high-volume (and when that volume is continually increasing) there is never sufficient time for checking whether we have actually understood what we have absorbed. 

Never enough time to cross check the consistency of all the many things we have been told. Inadequate time to follow-through to the implications and outcomes of what we have been told. 

So, in practice, H-V religion is always - and remains - for each and every adherent, a largely undigested mass. 

An undigested mass that must be obeyed. 

High-volume religion is intrinsically a case of all... or-nothing. 

Embrace and live-by the whole lot, or else you are not "one of us". 

Passive uncomprehending obedience - or heresy. 

The problem with this kind of high-volume/ passive religion is twofold: 

1. H-V R no longer works

2. H-V R is no longer what is needed. 

1. H-V Religion does not work, especially in The Modern West, because it is not wanted anymore - it has been rejected en masse and increasingly over several generations... 

Droves have left the churches; and of those who have not (yet) left, most implicitly reject whatever of their religion that conflicts with mainstream, materialistic secular-left totalitarian ideology. 

Religion has become a lifestyle choice, a social convenience or obligation.  

2. High-volume religion is no longer what is needed (and this is the deep reason why it does not work) because at this point in our spiritual developmental history it is (I believe) God's desire that Man's religion becomes something that he comprehends, chooses, and inwardly endorses.

By my understanding; in a totalitarian world of universal institution (including church) corruption; Men are now called-upon to be less passively obedient to institutions, including church institutions (which are, anyway, all net-corrupted); and instead required to take individual responsibility for their religion. 

If it is to be truly, spiritually, distinct from the mainstream materialism; Religion must become personal, inwardly-motivated, and active. 

This means that a Man's religion Must Be understood. 

In conclusion; H-V religion is inappropriate and ineffective and obsolete. 

What replaces it needs to be a low-volume (L-V) religion; in which all aspects have been individually reflected-upon with discernment directed towards understanding their validity, coherence, importance. 

All aspects of L-V religion can be, and need to be, recognized as a personal choice; and then those personal choices can be known as such. 

Only when we have a depth of comprehension of our religion, and have actively endorsed them; we can resist the relentless attacks on our assumptions for the mainstream of our society (including the attacks from the institutional churches). 

Only a low-volume religion has the possibility of functioning strongly and effectively on a personal basis.

H-V religion is the past; L-V religion, a potentially valid future.