“You cannot serve two masters, you cannot serve God and the power of money.” (Matthew 6:24).
The greatest service that any one person or group could provide for Satan in the context of the American electoral circus would be this: To convince American sinners struggling to be Christian (about 60% according to self-characterization) that the great “spiritual war” that needs to be fought for Christ in the USA is against something other than the Satanic political-economic order itself.
This service is being enthusiastically provided now by many people who cloak themselves with the mantle “Christian.” A case-in-point is the “network” of Protestant churches which calls itself the “New Apostolic Reformation” (NAR). Their “Seven Mountain Mandate” can very reasonably be termed “A Christian-Satanist Manifesto.”
Quite apart from teaching that the “cult of individualism” is, itself, the ultimate problem that cries out for “reformation,” these self-appointed emissaries of God celebrate the “Reagan economic miracle” and its cynical exploitation of “individualism” and its willful de-humanization of society in the “mechanical” pursuit of maximum profit. They preach a doctrine that is utterly perverse in the eyes of Orthodox Christians, that the “Lord rewards the righteous” NOT with the fruits of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – but rather with MONEY in your “Reagan economic miracle” bank account.
Their “Prosperity Theology” documents conclusively that these people have absolutely no idea what the Mystical Body of Christ is and what a sinner struggling to be Christian has to do in order to be in it. They have a similarly perverse understanding of the term “Kingdom of God.” Jesus expressed the meaning of this term with perfect clarity: “The Kingdom of God is inside you.” (Luke 17:20-21). That is, the sinner struggling to be Christian is able to enter the Kingdom of God, which is inside them, by stuggling against their badness and receiving the Holy Spirit through prayer. When they are truly within the Kingdom of God, inside themselves, then they are able to “love thy neighbor as thyself” and, in so doing, live in peace and repentance and serve as “the measure of yeast” that “raises the whole.”
But the NAR has no need for scripture, other than a few passages from Revelations. They are the new “Apostolic Reformation,” Martin Luther 2.0, directly empowered by God (according to them) to dismantle the secular state and establish what they call the “Kingdom of God” in the “Make America Great Again” “Reagan economic miracle” ”cult of individualism.”
Quite apart from speaking out against the State Church of Mammon, they are its apologists or perhaps even members of its Board of Directors. The self-proclaimed “prophet” and “apostles” of this movement claim, disengenously, that “reformation” of American society should end the non-existent separation of church and state in order that they can be in charge – presumably as some kind of American Ayatollahs.
They claim that their aim is to instill what they call “Christian values” within what they identify as seven key “pillars” of society: religion, family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business. And what exactly are these “Christian values” that the NAR Ayatollahs-in-waiting seek to “instill?” Is there even one word about “love thy neighbor as thyself?” Do they renounce their service of the “power of money?” Do they adhere to the Lord’s maxim – don’t judge others, judge yourself? (Matthew 7:1) The regrettable answer is no.
They claim to be engaged in “spiritual warfare” against evil forces other than themselves that are trying to turn the USA away from Christ (i.e., LGBT, buddhists, Democrats, etc.). And yet a good case can be made that they have themselves so sullied the label “Christian” that many consumers are disgusted and want nothing more to do with it.
The “Christian values” that they seek to instill ultimately concern the dominion of Protestant followers of the NAR “prophet” who consider that they have a “personal relationship with Christ” over everything and everybody else. If they were serious as sinners struggling to be Christian, the “spiritual warfare” that they conduct would be directed at themselves, at their own own judgmentalism, pridefulness and self-righteousness, working for real to establish the “Kingdom of God” within themselves so that they can be able to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
At some level, for sinners struggling to be Orthodox Christians, this is all rather comical – a truly American, P.T. Barnum-style “church” that claims to be “Christian” because its participants have a perceived “personal relationship with Christ.” Any motivated “American Dreamer” with a talent for oratory can open up such a “church,” with a huge parking lot, declare themselves to be a “prophet” and start reaping the “rewards for the righteous.” But at the same time this is sinister and alarming. These people play “both sides of the street” claiming to be working for Christ while freely and openly admitting that they actually work for “the power of money.” Even if some good does come from their assemblies, by virtue of “two or more having gathered” in the name of Christ, they are, at the end of the day, at least as much Satanist as they are Christian.
Martin Luther taught that all a sinner struggling to be Christian needed was scripture – a doctrine that, quite apart from promoting “unity in Christ,” led eventually to more than 10,000 different denominations of “Protestantism” being formed. Understanding that this approach failed, the NAR has more-or-less dispensed with any need for scripture in Protestantism 2.0 All their followers need to do is just get behind the “prophet” and the “apostles.” They “prove” their godliness by working what they present as “miracles.” For my part, I strongly suspect that any remarkable things they may have achieved came by virtue of the “Reagan economic miracle” that “rewards” them for their “righteousness.” But if it is really true that they have some supernatural accomplishments, then I would cite that as evidence that they are not merely “useful idiot” “stooges of Satan” but rather something much worse.
The primary reason that characters like the NAR “prophet” are able to gain a large following in the “teenage” United States is, it seems to me, because of two erroneous beliefs that are unfortunately widespread among American Protestants: “I believe, therefore I am saved,” and “It is only my personal relationship with Christ that matters.” These beliefs are dangerous because they lead to complacency and delusional thinking, where the “individual” consumer convinces himself that it is possible to have a “personal relationship with Christ” without working to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Worse, these beliefs tend to prevent the sinner struggling to become a Christian from ever making any progress on the “path to salvation”—progress that is only achieved by struggling and breaking free from his fallenness, so that he can “love thy neighbor as thyself,” and even “love thy enemy.” Such lost people do not believe that they need to make any progress in the lifelong struggle to live in peace and repentance because they are already fully “in Christ.”
The NAR views Donald Trump as “God’s warrior” sent to “Christianize” America. On this point, they might be right. I think that Trump might very well, in the end, contribute to restoration of Christian principles in the American political economic order. But this will certainly not be because the Christian-Satanist agenda of the NAR is fulfilled in whole or in part. It will be because Trump’s delusional, erratic, impulsive actions will hasten the fall of “the Masters.” His program to “Make America Great Again” might ultimately have the unintended consequence to “Make America Good Again.” But this will occur only after a long, painful period of Godly suffering.
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