NOTES ON THE HISTORIC BLINDNESS OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH: POSTMODERNISM AND THE RISE OF ANTICHRIST

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

QUOTATION. “A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.” – SAMUEL BUTLER, The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler, by his grandson, Samuel Butler, 1896, 2 vols.; edited

I.  FIRST THOUGHTS

A massive Sea Change has taken place in Western and especially American thought since the turn of the 20th century that has set us on a course toward Anarchy in the not distant future.

Please let me explain.

UNDERSTANDING HISTORY. In the course of my teaching career, I have had the rich challenge of designing courses in such matters as: The History of American Journalism, A History of the Jews, and Comparative Worldview Systems. From that, I discovered TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT in the understanding and teaching of History: ‘The Great Man Theory’ vs. the ‘History of Ideas.’

The Primary Question before the house is: WHAT DRIVES HISTORY – Great Men or Great Ideas? I think you will find our brief treatment of that important question useful.

1. GREAT MAN THEORY. “The Great Man Theory of Leadership espouses that great leaders are born, not made. These individuals come into the world possessing certain characteristics and traits not found in all people. These abilities enable them to lead while shaping the very pages of history. Under Great Man Theory, prominent leaders throughout the course of history were born to lead and deserved to do so as a result of their natural abilities and talents.” – EDITORS, Villanova University, Sep. 6, 2022; edited

• GREAT IDEAS THEORY. “It was WILLIAM OF OCCAM who propounded the fateful ‘Doctrine of Nominalism,’ which denies that Universals have a real existence. His triumph tended to leave Universals as mere names serving our convenience. ‘The issue ultimately involved is whether there is a Source of Truth higher than, and independent of, man; and the answer to the question is decisive for one’s view of the nature and destiny of humankind’. The practical result of Nominalist Philosophy is to ‘Banish the Reality’ which is perceived by the intellect and to posit as reality that which is perceived by the senses. With this change in the affirmation of ‘What is Real,’ the whole orientation of culture takes a turn, and we arc on the road to Modern [Godless] Empiricism.” – RICHARD WEAVER, Ideas Have Consequences, 1948, p. 3; edited

DK. While I believe you can make a moderate case for the first school of thought, it is my deep conviction that it is clearly Dr. Weaver who has his hand firmly on the engine that drives history: BIG IDEAS! While it is true that a Nero or a or a Torquemada or a Hitler or a Stalin or yes, a Donald Trump, by sheer force of personality, can influence the course of history, it is their Ideology, forcefully proclaimed, that actually does the hard work of directing historical events.

In other words: “Ideas have consequences, but Big Ideas have massive Consequences!”

Further, there are in human history significant TURNING POINTS as with the imposition of Nominalism upon the Western scene, that propels us toward very new, and often destructive ideas – Even Anarchy!. Such is the case with the next Big Idea that has powerfully reshaped and redirected Western Thought and Action,

Significantly, it is a philosophical grandchild of Nominalism.

II.  THE DEVIL’S BREW: POSTMODERNISM

About the time I was matriculating as a still somewhat newly minted Christian at Regent University in the 1980s, I was being wonderfully bombarded by a deluge of new literature from conservative Christian scholars who were still clear headed and clear eyed about the Raw Power of Ideas.

One of them was named GENE EDWARD VEITH, JR., and his work was to change my course forever. The book that did it for me: ‘Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture’ (1994; edited). I shamelessly asked for him to sign my book when I met him back then, and I am proud to display it to this very day!

• ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN THOUGHT. “The philosophical Modernism at issue in Postmodernism begins with [IMMANUEL] KANT’S ‘Copernican Revolution,’ that is, his assumption that we cannot know things in themselves and that objects of knowledge must conform to our faculties of representation (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1787). Ideas such as God, freedom, immortality, the world, first beginning, and final end have only a regulative function for knowledge, since they cannot find fulfilling instances among objects of experience. With [GEORGE] HEGEL, the immediacy of the subject-object relation itself is shown to be illusory. As he states in The Phenomenology of Spirit, ‘We find that neither the one nor the other is only immediately present in sense-certainty, but each is at the same time mediated’ (Hegel, 1807, 59) … Important Precursors to this notion are found in Kierkegaard, Marx, and Nietzsche.” – GARY AYLESWORTH, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Feb. 5, 2015; edited

• AGAINST TRUTH. “There is an objective natural Reality, a Reality whose existence and properties are logically independent of human beings—of their minds, their societies, their social practices, or their investigative techniques. Postmodernists dismiss this idea as a kind of ‘Naive Realism.’ Such Reality as there is, according to Postmodernists, is ‘a conceptual construct, an artifact of scientific practice and language.’ This point also applies to the investigation of past events by historians and to the description of social institutions, structures, or practices by social scientists.” – BRIAN DUIGNAN, Britannica, June 10, 2009; edited

• DECONSTRUCTIONISM. “Although Deconstruction has roots in MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S concept of ‘Destruktion,’ to deconstruct is not to destroy. Deconstruction is always a double movement of simultaneous affirmation and undoing. It started out as a way of reading the history of metaphysics in Heidegger and JACQUES DERRIDA but was soon applied to the interpretation of literary, religious, and legal texts as well as philosophical ones, and was adopted by several French feminist theorists as a way of making clearer the deep male bias embedded in the European intellectual tradition. To Deconstruct is to take a text apart along the structural ‘fault lines’ created by the ambiguities inherent in one or more of its key concepts or themes in order to reveal the equivocations or contradictions that make the text possible.” – NANCY J. HOLLAND, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ret. Aug. 8, 2023; edited

• BASE DEFINITION. “‘Man cannot know anything absolutely.’ We have only limited knowledge. What we call ‘Reality’ or ‘Truth’ is only ‘an individual or community interpretation’ of what exists. Each interpretation can be just as good as another although conflicting because each interpretation satisfies the felt needs of that person or community. Thus, ‘man constructs truth’ rather than discovers it, and there is no objective Good or Evil.” – G.E. VEITH, JR. Postmodern Times, 1994; edited

‘Ideological Anarchy,’ beloved, by any other name

DK. In all of this you will please carefully, even severely note that the entire edifice of Postmodern Thought issues straight from a ‘Spirit of Antichrist’ – Anti-truth, Anti-tradition, and Anti-Reason itself. Note further that all the significant philosophers and contributors to this seditious system of thought are themselves ‘Subversives against The Truth.’

And this Savage Spirit is in the Church, beloved, sitting in the front row now!

You can now appreciate more perhaps why my entire life and purpose as a Christian teacher is devoted to the defense of God’s Truth. And I have discovered that such purpose is violently opposed, tragically, more from the Church than the World.

This is, my friends, “The Last Battle,” as C.S. LEWIS termed it in his final installment to the Chronicles of Narnia (1956). So please do all you can to prepare for it, this titanic, ‘Last Days Conflict of Worldviews’ that animates history as no other force in the Universe.

To tie all this inexorably to our King of that Universe, now consider this.

“In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was [continually existing] in the beginning [co-eternally] with God. All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him not even one thing was made that has come into being. In Him was life [and the power to bestow life], and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or appropriate it or absorb it [and is unreceptive to it].” – JOHN 1:1-5, AMP

WORD. ‘LOGOS’ [λόγος]: “Thought; Reason; Discourse, ‘Truth;’ a Statement; as embodying ‘The Idea;’ the Doctrine, Divine Utterance; the very Sayings of God; a Declaration; a Dictum, Maxim or Weighty Saying; Proverb; Instruction; Preaching; Narration; an Account.”

THESIS. I propose that American Pastors today are thinking, acting, and speaking more as ‘Postmodernist, Self-Help Philosophers’ than as Orthodox Christian clergymen. As a consequence, they are carelessly driving the sheep from God’s Pasture, aiding and abetting the Rise of Lawlessness in America, and providing Foundation for the first American Dictatorship in our history.

III.  THE TEACHING

SCRIPTURE. “‘Even him’ [Antichrist], [whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” – 2 THESSALONIANS 2:9-12, KJV

KEY TERMS. Working of Satan; Lying Wonders; Deceivableness; Perish; Delusion; Lie; Damned; Pleasure

• WORKING OF SATAN. ‘Energeia’ [ἐνέργεια]: “Action, productive work, activity; in the NT, confined to superhuman activity; effectual, powerful [beyond normal human ability]; efficiency (of purpose); animated by Diabolical influence.”

• LYING WONDERS. ‘Teras’ [τέρας]: “[False] omen, miracle, mighty work; a portent or marvel; elicits a strong reaction (or awe) from observers; produces a powerful supernatural effect; makes the worker appear as a Prodigy [about which the people ‘wonder’].”

• DECEIVEABLENESS. ‘Apaté’ [ἀπάτη]: “Deceit, deception, deceitfulness, delusion; based on a root word meaning, ‘to cheat or delude;’ false impression; deceit motivated by guile and treachery; to lead from truth or into error; to mislead the mind or judgement; ‘to beguile.’”

• PERISH. ‘Apollumi’ [ἀπόλλυμι]: “To utterly destroy; (the resultant death being viewed as certain and final); to cut off [from life] fully; cause to be lost (utterly perish) by experiencing a miserable end; permanent, absolute destruction.”

• DELUSION. ‘Plané [πλάνη]: “Awandering; figuratively: deceit, misbelief, error, sin; fraudulence; a straying from orthodoxy or piety; a serious departure from what God says is true; deviant behavior; [gross] deception; a false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.”

• LIE. ‘Pseudos’ [ ψεῦδος]: “A falsehood, untruth; false religion; whatever is not what it professes to be; intentional misleading [or subterfuge]; a fiction or a false doctrine; a criminal falsehood; a falsehood uttered for the purpose of deception; an intentional violation of truth; a false statement or misrepresentation.”

• DAMNED. ‘Krinó’ [κρίνω]: “To distinguish, decide, try; avenge; to discriminate between good and evil in order to either condemn or exonerate; to ordain, decree or call into question [in a reckoning or summons]; to form a judgment in a judicial sense; to vindicate or punish; used in this context to  pronounce to be guilty; ‘sentence to [eternal] punishment; to doom;’ opposed to acquit or absolve, before the penalty.”

• PLEASURE. ‘Eudokeó’ [εὐδοκέω]: “To think well of, to be well-pleased; approve or approbate; to desire, to enjoy; to think it good, to resolve; it seems good to one, is one’s good pleasure; to think it good, choose, determine, decide; to prefer to choose in favor of; the gratification of the senses or of the mind; agreeable sensations or emotions; the excitement, relish or happiness produced by enjoyment or the expectation of good; opposed to pain.”

COMMENTARY. “‘Him whose coming’ — The Apostle, in his eagerness to foretell the destruction of the Man of Sin, having broken in upon his subject, now returns to it again, and describes the other qualifications by which this wicked one should advance and establish himself in the world. He should rise, the Apostle signifies, to credit and authority by the most diabolical methods; should pretend to supernatural powers, and boast of revelations, visions, and miracles, false in themselves, and applied to promote false doctrines. The expression, ‘whose coming,’ here signifies the first appearance of this Lawless One in an open manner. The ‘mystery of iniquity’ wrought covertly in the apostles’ days; and the ‘Man of Sin’ was not to show himself ‘openly’ till that which restrained was taken out of the way.” DK: I teach that the Antichrist will be known ‘before’ the Rapture by those who are fully ‘in Christ,’ who shall not be caught off their guard. – cf. 1 Chron. 12:32; 1 Thess. 5:4  

‘After the working of Satan’ — Whose first setting up, and further increasing of his power, is by Satan’s influence; or with such a kind of working as Satan is wont to use wherewith to seduce persons; ‘with all power’ — Pretended power from God; ‘and signs’ — Fictitious or false signs, namely, not such as are fit to prove the truth of the doctrines which they are brought to confirm, but are mere impostures and forgeries; ‘and lying wonders’ — Such illusions and deceptions as were effected by the power of Satan, to confirm the doctrines and dominion of Antichrist, and were calculated ‘to cause wonder’ in the beholders. Macknight reads this clause, ‘with all power, and signs, and miracles of falsehood,’ judging the structure of the sentence requires that ψευδους, ‘of falsehood,’ be joined not only with wonders, or miracles, but with power and signs. And in explication of the terms he observes, that they are either signs, miracles, and exertions of power, performed in appearance only; mere impositions upon the senses of mankind; or they are real signs and miracles performed for the establishment of error; and consequently ‘they are the works of evil spirits’ …

‘This description of the wicked or Lawless One,’ plainly evinces that Mohammed cannot be the Man of Sin, as some pretend. For, instead of working miracles, he utterly disclaimed all pretensions of that sort. In like manner, and for the same reason, the Man of Sin cannot be the factious leaders of the Jews in their revolt from the Romans, as Le Clerc and Whitby have affirmed; nor any of the heathen Roman emperors, as others have imagined. Besides, although these emperors exalted themselves above all other kings and princes, and opposed Christ very much, they did not apostatize from the Christian Faith, nor sit in the temple of God. 

‘With all deceivableness of unrighteousness’ — Or every unrighteous deceit, (the phrase being a Hebraism). The Apostle means those feigned visions and revelations, and other pious frauds, by which the corrupt clergy gained credit to their impious doctrines and practices. ‘In them that perish’ — Who are in the highway to Eternal Destruction; ‘because they received not the love of the truth’ — The cause this why God suffered them to fall into such destructive errors.” – JOSEPH BENSON, Notes on the Holy Bible, 5 vols., 1811-1818; edited

IV.  LAST THOUGHTS

Clearly, this is my most direct and severe accusation against the American Church for her treachery against Christ and Canon to date. This has been accomplished by the gross and willful abandonment of that portion of the Scriptures that teach God as not only a Savior, but also as a righteous, angry Judge who shall have no other gods before Him! Including a contrived, blasphemous and false ‘American Jesus’ based on the ‘Neutering of Truth’ and its demand for them to hold each other and us to account by it.

THE CULPRIT: POSTMODERNISM. One of the most lucid-thinking American theologians today is DR. DOUGLAS GROOTHUIS, currently professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary in Colorado. In his remarkably forthright book, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (2000), he dedicates the work to two of my own intellectual heroes, Francis Schaeffer and Carl F.H. Henry, and opens with this.

“Truth is a daunting, difficult thing; it is also the greatest thing in the world. Yet we are chronically ambivalent toward it. We seek it … and we fear it. Our better side wants to pursue Truth wherever it leads; our darker side balks when the Truth begins to lead us anywhere we do not want to go. Let the Truth be damned if the Truth would damn us! We want both to serve the Truth and to be served by it. Such is our uneasy life, East of Eden” (p. 9; edited).

Little did Dr. Groothuis realize back then, nor certainly this writer, that the entire pantheon of American Pastors twenty years later would choose wholesale against Christ and Truth and for a Postmodern Gospel paraded before the world by a Beast who cannot even spell truth: DONALD JOHN TRUMP.

THE PRICE.  Nothing less than the Collapse of the American Order, the Destruction of the Christian Witness in our time, and the personal, catastrophic and eternal Loss of Heaven. That is correct. By all that has preceded this conclusion from the Canon, one cannot serve Two Masters: God and Mammon, God and Political Power, indeed, God and Antichrist!

By the Scriptures: ‘They did not love The Truth but preferred The Lie!’ Therefore, they are self-condemned, damned by their own reckless betrayal of the King. Worse, far worse, Pastors pitch countless multitudes into The Abyss with them, and must account for this before Christ at The Judgment.

Beloved, this is what the Lord says, and I cannot change it, though I confess I sometimes wish that I could. But He and His Word shall govern, and no other.

So at this late, desperately Waning Hour, is anyone listening anymore? God, will you give us fifty, or forty-five, or forty, or perhaps thirty or even twenty? Dearest Lord Jesus, will you give us but ten, Sir?

Just ten.

“And He said, ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.’ So the Lord went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham … Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground … ‘For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O [true] sons of Jacob.’” – GENESIS 18:32-33; 19:23-25; MALACHI 3:6, NKJV

DR. KELLY’S CONTACTS

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/RGyrWUDgXOk