The antichrists Among Us

Our hostile age charges the Gospel with falsehood, oppression, limiting moral freedom, meddling where it doesn’t belong, and much, much more. In reality, it is our secular age that is the wellspring of lies, which oppresses our generation with half-truths and outright lies, which destroys morality in the name of license, and which, through its meddlesome government and schools, demands to control and rule in every area of life. It is not we who are guilty of screwing up the world, but all who are the enemies of Christ.  ~T. M. Moore


As Chuck Swindoll speaks of American cults in his excellent book Improving Your Serve, consider the pyramid to narcissism:

I

Me

Mine

Myself

"You deserve a break today."  "Have it your way."  "Do yourself a favor."  "You owe it to yourself."  "If it feels good, do it."  "Look out for numero uno."  “You only go around once, so you have to grab for all the gusto you can! Why settle for less?”

DOING THE RIGHT THING

http://www.doingtherightthing.com/

Killing Life and Liveliness

Why are more and more people being diagnosed with mental illness? Laziness and narcissism are symptoms of mental illness, and they are at the root of all human evil.  Most of us would prefer to follow rather than lead, because it requires more thinking to lead.  When we give up our right to think for ourselves, we have entered a dangerous state of laziness, a condition ripe for others to control us.  Why are there more and more psychopaths? Could it possibly be due to the stench in our society? Is it just so much harder to cope while living surrounded by so much filth? Consider the mobility of our society and the fewer meaningful connections we are making with each other? Could there be any correlation between mental illness, psychopathy and tossing God out of the public square? Can it have to do at all with how the cultural and intellectual elite want the common folk to be managed, kept quiet, under wraps, controlled and manipulated so we will not display passion about Jesus or about the corruption permeating our culture? I believe they want us drugged into submission, complacency, mediocrity and tolerance so their evil fog of progressivism can freely infiltrate this land and its people. They want us drugged so we won't display all of the emotions with which God created us, so we won't engage our brains to think for ourselves. They want us drugged so we will remain silently tucked away in our homes, not caring about the ever deepening pit of evil into which our country is wallowing. They want us to believe all is well. They want us to be a nation of cookie cutter people, unable to display our original creativity, for that scares them.  It makes us unpredictable, and, therefore, harder to control. They want us to mind our own business, and to swallow the lie that the choices other people make for themselves won't affect us. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1963, "Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly ... I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be." Progressives will stop at nothing to acquire and maintain their covert agenda. Like Lazarus in John 12:10-11, "So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in Him." they want to kill me too. There are ways to kill life and liveliness without committing murder, and with their control, they want to destroy my liveliness. We may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on it's head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others - to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredictability and originality, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilia character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity. Evil, then, is that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.

We are all born knowing God, with a conscience to divide between right and wrong.  The truth, which is Jesus, leads us to right thinking, wisdom and robust mental health.  Sadly, the seduction of this corrupt world begins its relentless assault on our minds and souls as soon as we are born into it.  The mental WILLness begins as we freely reject Him.  Robbed of righteous, clear thinking, the more we choose to follow the wide path to destruction, by making choices that lead us in the direction of death, instead of life, the more our minds are rendered incapacitated and we become ever more mentally ill, deficient or diseased.  The only answer to mental illness is for one to be transformed by the renewing of one's mind in Jesus.  Personal purification is required not only for the salvation of our individual souls, but for also for the salvation of our world.