Race to the bottom:
Looks like it's only a matter of time before we have a Satan worshipper on the Democratic Party ticket. Or at least running the Department of Education. No doubt some of the things the kids are shown that there are good healthy alternatives to the white male oppression of Christianity, such as BDSM, sex slavery and the creative musical genius of Charlie Manson.
"There are too many people that are caught up in the things of what people want to hear. The prophets are saying what the people want to hear." — Robert Pears
"I believe the greatest tragedy in the world tonight is a sick church in a dying world." — Leonard Ravenhill
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make throught-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.... The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that.... Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?" — George Orwell, 1984
Doublethink (noun): the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time as correct, especially as a result of political indoctrination.
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Today we have the majority of Christians of all denominations scrupulously ignoring the clear language of both the old and new testaments concerning what are the Laws of God, a word which has no meaning whatsoever in 2022. Yet unlike Orwell's prediction that one word will represent a complex concept and rigidly defined, we simply have a meaningless word with all the "subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten." And naturally, the meaningless word God is used by half-baked fanatics of all extremes following whatever is popular while knowingly quoting Orwell without actually knowing what he was writing about.
This can all be laid at the feet of the narcissism epidemic that has come into full flower with the endless virus pandemics and buried so called Western Civilization, in its proliferating affluence and extravagance, up to its eyeballs in meaninglessness. In place of a meaningful God in a meaningful universe we now worship the false idol of Popular Culture, which includes Orwell, Fitzgerald and everyone else in the Wikipedia immortality sweepstakes spiraling into meaningless infinity. This is a direct result of the first and primary Law of God that's being completely ignored. As written in book of Exodus: "You shall have no others gods before me."
"For the mind that is set on flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot." ( Romans 8: 7) Orwell's bleak vision came from the fact he was an atheist and all atheists are bound to have dystopic visions of one sort or another. Without any kind of God enforcing basic moral principles human beings naturally devolve to their original barbaric natures, sliding ever further down and deeper into the toilet bowl of infantile desires. And life becomes ever more meaningless as a person ages seeing that their "communist" or "capitalist" or "fascist" youthful enthusiasms have predictably brought only epic disaster and destruction not just to themselves but to the planet as a whole.
When Jesus spoke of becoming as little children to enter the Kingdom of heaven He wasn't referring to adults behaving like 6-year-olds, as we see on TV and in every shopping mall and coffeeshop in the land, adults and children imitating what they see on TV. Life today is simply imitation and emulation of TV behavior. In other words worship. We worship our TV screens and the celebrity idols we imagine are real. They imagine they're real as well until they reach the heights of their profession only to become aware that their reality only extends as far as the next script they're handed to role play in.
The alternative to this splendid isolation holding Goofy's hand and being led through the world of self with along with Michael Jackson and Warren Zevon is to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. That's my humble belief, anyway. But it does have its drawbacks as far as socializing goes given the current conversational requirements, which are to stick to superficial religious generalities, current affairs, sports, cooking, lifestyle, the weather, pop science, fiction, music, art and conspicuous consumption. I just happen to find Jesus far more interesting and complex than all the other topics combined, as well as incorporating all of them into His reality....but at the lowest level of that reality. I suppose science can be interesting if you're interested in going to live on the mars colony, driving an electric car or purchasing the latest VR helmet. But since I'm aware God is a far more interesting reality than any of those I'm not really that interested in them, either.
However, for reasons one understands at some point once they surrender their life to God, they find out that to follow Jesus is to be hated, just as He said two thousand years ago. It's to pick up His cross as well as to follow in His footsteps of service to the Father. It's to deny one's own self and become a bond-servant or slave to one's Creator. "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10: 37)
"And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord." (Matthew 10: 22-24) This is the promise of eternal life that all true Christians have uppermost in their minds as they pray ceaselessly for guidance by the Holy Spirit.
"He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." (Matthew 12: 30) Being against Jesus, is being for the world and that goes off into madness and ego disintegration as well, as can be seen in the case of the well-known narcissists on tv as well as their millions of viewers. Unless one knows their true self in the body of Christ, they are not going to know their true self at all, only their own conceptions of God, as fed to them by their preacher, church family, human family and relatives where they all congregate and break bread together... on TV.
Jesus spoke his direct words that human beings had to choose which side they were going to be on: His or the world's as a rebuke to the Pharisees, variously referred to as generation of vipers and the sons of the devil, who had accused him of casting out demons by the power of Satan. Many following Jesus, myself as an example, will find themselves quite often being accused not just of being demonic but of theft, insanity, egomania, smug superiority and all kinds of other baseless slanders. If this happens, you can be sure that you're on the right track, particularly if you aren't an evil, insane, smugly superior demon-possessed thief.
Unfortunately, given that every city in America resembles every other city in America, which in my book alone signifies these are end times given how empty these places are of anything resembling the adult culture of the past and are nothing more nor less than shopping meccas, the advice of Jesus to leave your persecutors in one city and flee to another is no longer an option for anyone. And so it is time to stand fast in His word and await His coming.
Jesus spoke these transparently clear words, pregnant with meaning and promise, so that all future generations would have no doubt about what was transpiring around them amidst the lies and delusions of the crowd, and there is no mistaking the subsidiary meanings. Not can these subsidiary meanings "rubbed out and forgotten" as Orwell wrongly predicted. Orwell was lamenting his own misguided romantic notions of utopian socialism/communism, along with seeing the invariable authoritarianism that comes along with centralized power seizing hold of the "democracies", which we now see in their fruition. As Jesus said about the false prophets, who surround us on all sides along with their true believing followers bellowing in unison. ("Ye shall known them by their fruits." — Matthew 7: 16) Along with the postmodern variants of cheap black humor, cheaper irony or cheapest puerile ridicule and insult.
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away." (Matthew 24: 35) Praise God. Praise the Lord Jesus. Praise the indwelling Holy Spirit sent to guide us to a righteous and faithful life.
Hallelujah. Amen and amen and amen.