Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

Francis Berger has taken the idea of Litmus Tests (used to determine sides in the spiritual war) further in a recent post; in particular clarifying the effect that the birdemic has had on his own discernment. I recommend that you read the whole thing - including comments, where FB brings out this point explicitly.
I have noticed that one way of Not learning from the birdemic is to say that nothing has really changed as a result...  Of course, this has an element of truth; in that there had been decades (or generations) of apostasy and corruption leading up to the global totalitarian coup of early 2020 - rationalized and disguised (as it was) as a necessary response to a novel plague of unprecedented scale and deadliness. In other words, the claim is that 2020 was merely a quantitative continuation of long-term trends. But rapid, global and un-reversed quantitative change - such as happened over a space of weeks with the international birdemic fake-response - counts as qualitative when the nature and basis of life is transformed. As so often, intellectual over-think operates as a failure of discernment, and an excuse for cowardice and expediency. Mostly - in our hyper-complex virtual world of Matrix lies - what is obvious to common sense and personal experience is also what is true: In 2020 - the world changed. 
Francis B describes how, since the birdemic, and reflecting on the Litmus Test idea he has realized that there are only two sides in the spiritual war of the world (God or Satan, good or evil) - and that people and institutions who had before seemed to be 'intermediate', or forces of partial good, were actually on the side of evil. In other words; that to be 'partially' leftist was actually to be fully leftist. To embrace even one of the Big Lies of the left-agenda, to fail even one Litmus Test - was de facto (in the world as is) to have chosen the side of Satan.
This was demonstrated clearly (and, I would have thought, unambiguously) by the way that the birdemic Big Lie was accepted and embraced by all nations, all powerful social institutions, all large churches. None rejected it as an evil-motivated falsehood. And this is another aspect of the birdemic revelations; that one must either reject the birdemic Big Lie completely*; recognizing it as dishonest and deliberately misleading top-to-bottom, by intent, from conception to execution -- or else one will have accepted it. A partial/ nuanced response to the birdemic is de facto accepting/ embracing the lie: choosing the demonic side.
In sum; what has changed since the birdemic is precisely this simplification - whereby the fact that there are only two sides, and the clear division between these sides, has become apparent. From the spiritual perspective - this simplification and clarification is, indeed, the main benefit of the birdemic. So; when we fail to recognize the qualitative transformation of the birdemic; we have failed as Christians to learn from the biggest disaster to befall the churches since the time of Jesus; and failed, furthermore, to equip ourselves with the most powerful weapon against evil rampant: which is our own power of spiritual discernment (backed by the infinite power of repentance). 
*To endorse a complete rejection of the Big Lie of the birdemic and its response is not Of Course to believe that every single fact and aspect of it is untrue; any more than completely to reject Soviet Communism, German National Socialism or Chinese Maoism entails that every single thing about them was evil. Effective evil is always and necessarily seeded with some true facts and some good impulses, or else it can have no traction and no rationale. It is the overall intent and motivation (to oppose God, to reject divine creation) that is completely evil and a Big Lie; and the embedded truths and virtues merely serve to make the Big Evil Lie more persuasive and effective.