NOTES ON THE ERA OF ANTICHRIST: PILTDOWN MAN AND THE DELUSION OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH – (WITH VIDEO)

1. THE TEACHING

SCRIPTURE. “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” – 2 THESSALONIANS 2:9-12, NKJV

KEY TERM: “STRONG DELUSION.” ‘Plané’ [πλάνης]: “From a root word meaning, ‘To rove as a tramp.’ An imposter or misleader, deceiver set about to seducing; refers to all manner of fraudulence; a straying from orthodoxy or true piety; deceit, delusion and error; to roam from the safety of truth or virtue; to wander; imp. an erratic teacher [pastor or priest]; to take the wrong way [and not the Way of God].”

QUOTATION. “In an Era of Stress and Anxiety, when the present seems unstable and the future unlikely, the natural response is to retreat and withdraw from Reality, taking recourse either in fantasies of the future or in modified visions of a half-imagined past.” ― ALAN MOORE, Watchmen, Graphic Novel, 1995; edited

COMMENTARY. “That they all.’—This is God’s Purpose in making them believe the Lie — ‘In order that, one and all, they might be judged [damned].” He who desireth not the death of a sinner, now is said actually to lay plans with the intention of Judging him: Such are the bold self-contradictions of the Bible! It must not, however, be forgotten for a moment that God did not begin to will the sinner’s Judgment till after He had offered him freely the love of His own blessed truth, and had been rejected. ‘When once the sinner is incurable, the only way to vindicate truth and righteousness is by hastening on his condemnation,’ whatever that condemnation may mean.

‘Who believed not the truth’ — Once more the offence for which they are condemned is insisted upon. Theirs is no fancy sin. What God wanted them to believe was not some fantastical dogma, some fiction between which and the fictions of the Man of Sin there was nothing morally to choose, but the inviolable truth by which God Himself is bound. ‘But had pleasure in their unrighteousness!’ (so runs the Greek): i.e.,Consciously gave their moral consent to ‘the Unrighteousness of Antichrist!’ (2 Thessalonians 2:10), the Unrighteousness which sought to impose itself upon them, and which they would never have been led into had they loved the truth.” – CHARLES ELLICOTT, An Old and New Testament Commentary, 1878, 1897; edited

DK’S TAKE. In the tragic wake of this passage so applicable to what has happened to America and her Church today, I was reminded in a spiritual rush of JESUS’ LAMENTATION: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, ‘but you were not willing!’” – MATTHEW 23:37, NKJV

Merely insert the words, “My people, My people!” and you have the analogous theological shoe fixed perfectly upon the current Betrayal of the American Church in this seditious Age of Antichrist. Indeed, as I have argued for several years now, ‘American Christians have chosen an Antichrist over their true Christ,’ the consequences of which are nothing short of Damnation. Selah.

II. HOW DID WE GET HERE?

It still seems incredulous to many of us in this community that America and her Church could have been so easily misled. I know it still seems that way to me, despite thousands of hours of research, prayer, and writing about it in the past four years or so. Just last week as I was pondering these grave matters, a phrase came to me seeming out of nowhere:

“PILTDOWN MAN!”

I had no idea what that term referred to, so I turned to Wikipedia to learn a bit about it. “Piltdown Man (‘Eoanthropus Dawsoni’) was once thought to be a ‘missing link’ between Man and Ape. The first Piltdown fragments were discovered in 1912. Thereafter, over 500 scientific essays were written on the Piltdown Man in a 40-year period.

‘The discovery was proven to be a deliberate fraud in 1953’ by CHARLES DAWSON, an archaeologist, geologist and fossil collector for the British Museum. However, no one is quite certain who was involved. There are a number of other suspects, including SIR ARTHUR SMITH WOODWARD, Keeper of the British Museum’s Natural History department, and PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN,a paleontologist and Jesuit theologian.” (Mar. 9, 2015; edited).

For a number of reasons, I have been led to believe that the Final Eschatological Countdown for America began at the Turn of the 20^th Century, 1900. I propose that God’s Clock for our Nation began to move inexorably forward for the subsequent 120 Years per the Noahic Template found in GENESIS 6:3:

 “Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive and remain with man forever, because he is indeed flesh [sinful, corrupt—given over to sensual appetites]; ‘nevertheless his days shall yet be a hundred and twenty years’” (Amplified).

AMERICA IN 2020. I will continue to argue – and document – that the America of 1900 is light years distant from the America of 2020. To demonstrate the point, I turn to an excellent little essay by WILLIAM FREY, writing for The Brookings Institution on January 11, 2021, just a few days after the J6 Insurrection at the Nation’s Capital. His article speaks to what analysts are now calling, DEMOGRAPHIC STAGNATION – “The evolution of the population profile of a nation over time that impact everything!”

• STAGNATION IN POPULATION GROWTH. “For much of the recent past, the U.S. has been one of the most rapidly growing countries in the industrialized world. This was especially true in the last half of the 20th Century, due to the post-World War II Baby Boom and rising immigration in the 1980s and 1990s. ‘The initial results from the 2020 Census show the second smallest decade-long growth in American history.’ Recently released Census Bureau population estimates show that from July 1, 2019, to July 1, 2020, the nation grew by just 0.35%. ‘This is the lowest annual growth rate since at least 1900.’”

• DECREASE IN GEOGRAPHIC MOBILITY. “Another indicator of the nation’s demographic stagnation is its low level of geographical mobility. In the year before COVID-19 swept the country,a smaller share (9.3%) of Americans changed residence than in any year since 1947, when the Census Bureau first started collecting annual migration statistics. ‘U.S. migration trends have shown a fairly consistent declinesince the economically prosperous late-1940s to 1960s, when approximately one-fifth [20%] of Americans changed residence annually.’ ‘By the late 1990s, only about 15% to 16% of the population moved each year, dropping to 13% to 14% in the early 2000s.’”

• AGING OF THE POPULATION. “The 2020 Census will also highlight the sharp growth divide between the old and the young in America, as suggested by estimates from the Census Bureau’s National Demographic Analysis. They show that between 2010 and 2020, the number of people over age 55 grew by 27%, which is 20 times larger than the growth rate of the collective population under 55 (1.3%). ‘The largest driver of this divide is the Baby Boomer generation, who passed the age of 65 during the past decade, increasing the size of the 65- to 74-year-old age group by a half.”

• DECLINE IN THE NATION’S WHITE POPULATION.  For the first time ever, the most recent Census Bureau estimates by race show a small decline of 16,612 in the nation’s white population over the 2010-to-2019 period. ‘If this trend is confirmed with the full 2020 census, the 2010-to-2020 decade would be the only decade since the first census was taken in 1790 when the white population did not grow.’ This decline in the white population is a major driver of the nation’s demographic stagnation.

• GREATER RACIAL DIVERSITY. Census Bureau population estimates released last year revealed that ‘more than half of the nation’s total population are now members of the millennial generation or younger.’ And while these younger generations—born in 1981 or later—are not growing as rapidly as older age groups, they are far more racially diverse.

• IMMIGRATION DECLINES PROJECTED. The above analyses make plain that the nation is in the midst of unprecedented demographic stagnation. Much of this is attributable to lower fertility rates and increased mortality associated with an aging population. The COVID-19 pandemic is certainly accentuating this pattern. The main projection suggests that if current trajectories of fertility, mortality, and immigration persist, U.S. population growth between 2020 and 2060 would be 22% (to 404 million people). That is half the 44% growth rate of the previous four decades. Under the Census Bureau’s main projection, between 2020 and 2035, the nation’s under-18 population would grow by 4%. ‘But under its low-immigration projection, there would be zero growth in the under-18 population. In both projections, the over-65 population would grow by at least 38%.’

The Title Summary: “The New 2020 Census Show an Aging America and Wide Racial Gaps Between Generations.”

A XENOPHOBIC AMERICA. During my doctoral studies in the early 1970s, I was happily exposed to the teachings of the distinguished American mathematician, JOHN W. TUKEY in his book on Exploratory Data Analysis (1977) who said that EDA is “Detective Work” — that my wonderful mentor, DR. RAYMOND TUCKER described as “reading the data for its underlying meaning.”

So, the first thing that jumped out at me from this Brookings Survey is how prevalent among us is XENOPHOBIA: “The fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners.” That is a somewhat antiseptic definition that most of us use and just sniff at. But it has another definition:

‘Racism.’

The great American statesman and Abolitionist orator, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, once described the American Soul on this matter in this way. May the words sting us in the severest way possible, because they are all the more relevant to the present hour than we are willing to admit.

I quote it at full length from his original pen for its towering importance to this UNPOPULAR PROPOSITION: ‘The Indelible Imprint Slavery has had upon the today’s America is Reborn in MAGA Christian Nationalism!

“I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting Religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation.

What I have said respecting and against Religion, I mean strictly to apply to the ‘Slaveholding Religion’ of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity Proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. ‘To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.’

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of ‘stealing the livery of the court of Heaven to serve the Devil in.’ I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies which every where surround me.

We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families, — sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers, — leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate.

We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the Gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! All for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other — devils dressed in angels’ robes, and Hell presenting the semblance of Paradise.” – “Life of an American Slave,” Lynn, Massachusetts, April 28, 1845; edited

THE MASON-DIXON LINE REDUX. America’s most famous boundary is the Mason Dixon Line. In the Civil War it came to signify the border between North and South as it separated Slave-owning Maryland from Free Pennsylvania, originally the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the United States. In the pre-Civil War period it was regarded, together with the Ohio River, as the dividing line between slave states south of it and free-soil states north of it.

The term Mason and Dixon Line was first used in Congressional debates leading to the Missouri Compromise (1820). ‘Today the Mason-Dixon Line still serves figuratively as the political and social dividing line between the North and the South,’ although it does not extend west of the Ohio River. – Adapted from the Editors of Britannica, Feb. 8, 1999

The Point. All of this undergirds my argument that American has returned to her Racist Roots as never before under the bigoted leadership of Donald Trump. It is undeniable, beloved, a ‘Self-evident Truth’ of our regressively hateful, color-conscious times.

But our God shall no longer be mocked with impunity. Not for one more minute, beloved.

THE INDICTMENT. Only those who truly love God with all their hearts, souls and minds, and their neighbors as themselves – ‘Only those’ shall escape the Holy Fire of God that is set to ignite the Apostate America of 2024 so very soon now.

Since the American Church has chosen to play THE HARLOT, she shall unavoidably inherit God’s Whirlwind now stirring just over the horizon. The last section will close out The Douglass Indictment of American Christianity with notes on the importance of ‘Donald Trump’s impact on America’s Telos.

III. LAST THOUGHTS ON A SUICIDAL NATION & CHURCH

I’LL BE BRIEF. Having done all I can in this limited space to further my argument that Donald Trump is for all intents and purposes, ‘America’s Grim Reaper.’ It is astonishing to me (there’s that word again) that just One Man could have done so much in so short a time to very nearly bring this once-Great Republic to her moral knees.

Aided and chiefly abetted so tragically, by ‘America’s Dark Alliance of primarily White Christians and White Republicans.’

I therefore conclude with a stinging alert by the EDITORS of the South Florida Sun Sentinel in a recent piece titled, “A Republican Warning of National Political Suicide” (May 20, 2024; edited).

“The world was shocked when more than 900 Americans who followed ‘People’s Temple’ preacher JIM JONES to the wilderness of Guyana committed suicide or were murdered at his command in 1978 after swallowing fruit drinks laced with cyanide.

Millions wondered how something so ghastly could happen. Far from a mystery, it was another example, albeit an extreme one of: How a charismatic cult leader makes his followers forsake all else — even their own lives [and their own God!]. Many dictatorships and millions of wartime deaths have owed to such evil genius.

‘The United States is up next.’

DONALD TRUMP has transformed virtually the entire Republican Party [and the American Church] into a Personality Cult, rather than the responsible instrument of principles and policy that it once was. ‘Only he matters.’ He jokes about being a Dictator if he’s elected again ‘but only on Day One’ …

SEN. RICK SCOTT went to Trump’s trial last week in a show of loyalty, but long before that, he and a dozen Florida House Republicans voted against certifying Biden’s election. (In an editorial at the time, we called them “the Sunshine State Seditionists.”)

Even now, REP. BYRON DONALDS of Naples, said to be on Trump’s vice presidential short list, is among those who will not commit to respecting the outcome if Trump loses fairly again …

Long before that terrible day in Jonestown, Jim Jones had cult members rehearse how they would drink a poisoned beverage to commit what he called “Revolutionary Suicide,” a term he didn’t invent. It is no exaggeration to say that America could commit Revolutionary Suicide on Nov. 5.”

CODA. Precisely five months to the day of this post on June 5, 2024 to the November 5 Presidential Election – ‘150 days’ – America will very probably decide her Destiny for these Last Days. For some, me included, the very Destiny of the entire World.

‘In just one 24-hour period,’ our Future Course hangs in Epochal Balance (cf. Revelation 18:17-18).

Therefore do I close with the powerful words and pen of the Prophet-Leader MOSES: “ If it is unacceptable in your sight to serve the Lord, ‘choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve:’ whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live; ‘but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’” – JOSHUA 25:15, AMP

May each house listening today choose well indeed, I truly pray. Selah.

POSTSCRIPT. Just before I came to deliver this Commentary, I virtually ‘heard’ two Hebrew Words (I do not speak Hebrew): ‘Chazon’ [חָזוֹן], or “A revelation, oracle or vision.” And ‘Berith’ [בְּרִית], or “God’s compact or covenant.” My first impression is that God is saying to all Christians and Pastors especially:

“I will reveal the true nature of the Gospel in all its fullness to anyone who will obey and teach ALL that I say, and they shall be saved. Those who will not do this will be lost.” Selah.

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/PZ_SdFqVk7k