Saturday, September 1, 2012

On The Army Of Darkness

On our previous post, Anonymous commented:

Let us not forget that Screwtape's goal not the corruption of "society", it is securing individual souls. Insofar as whatever political or social conditions on earth aid this end they are good, but they are in every place secondary. It is the salvation of individuals on which the battle is fought, not "societies".
God cares not for the state of the world, it will be whatever state he wishes in the end. He cares how men act. Job was not asked to make heaven on earth. He was not asked anything but to show faith in the face of a miserable earth.


What I suspect that the commenter is forgetting is that just as the Body of Christ and the Communion of the Saints is an army, so too is what I'll call the 'Army of Darkness'...you are free to use Powers and Principalities if you prefer a more KJV feel.

Just as armies have elements that specialize in retail level destruction, so too does the Army of Darkness.  Screwtape, for instance, advises one of his minions who is precisely just such a retail-level agent of corruption.  But armies also have artillery sections, specializing in wholesale destruction, and they also have logistical and intelligence sections, which, IMO are the most dangerous of them all.  Screwtape is basically a fairly ranking officer in Infernal Logistics.

The culture is basically the logistical arena of the battle for individual souls.  This is why it is so important to at least contest it vigorously.  Just as you'd not like to be an army fighting while constantly beaten down by artillery fire enabled by your enemy's logistical supremacy, so too is it much harder for Christians to keep the faith under such adverse conditions.  Sure, there are some that do regardless, but let's be real.  The mass pornification of our culture has made it a LOT harder to walk the Christian walk.  Satan most assuredly cares about the culture and the society, because that is the strategic and logistical environment wherein he will secure the individual souls that he is ultimately after.  Because he is our Adversary, we should care as well.

Because encouragement is a main focus here at the Chariot, I'll close with this.  Satan's strength in the US is immense on the tactical and strategic level, but he is very vulnerable in logistics.  Cutting his line of supply is doable, indeed many of his organs of corruption are both not profitable and vulnerable to disruption, technological and otherwise.  Many of them lack even the support of his fire and maneuver elements, who could probably be manipulated into opening fire on their own logistical troops in the glorious manner of 'Mordor Friendliness'.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The mass pornification of our culture has made it a LOT harder to walk the Christian walk."

And what do you plan to do about it?

I know we've been down this road before, but it seems to me that for the average citizen worrying about the state of society is thoroughly counterproductive. Your vote and the vote of every other person you could reasonably convince won't change the state of society one bit. The zietgiest is the zietgiest. It is what it is because of forces well beyond your control.

As a practical example a coworker recently tried to spark up a political discussion with me. He has been watching the RNC convention and is a typical 24/7 news center/right republican endorsing whatever it is the mainline party is endorsing at the moment. He of course thinks that this is important and that he has done good by society by listening to all the speeches this week.

I disagree. Listening to those speeches didn't change one damn thing about his actions, even his vote. If it did change his vote it wouldn't change the outcome of the election. And if it did change the outcome of the election I don't believe it would have that much of an effect on the "state of society".

I would classify his actions as masturbation of the spirit. He has spent several hours watching these speeches and discussing them. In that time he could have done any number of actions in his own life that would have had a real moral effect. Help his child with homework. Show affection for his wife. Go to the gym to improve his health. Volunteer. Or even pray. Then he might think of God for more then the one hour a week he mumbles platitudes at his mainline church which he ignores the rest of the week and never reflects on.

That's the kind of real life action your likely to get from people when you tell them to "concern" themselves with the state of the world. It will lead them away from God, not towards him. It is much better to tell people to focus on their own lives and what they can do in them, not "society".

God understands the society you live in. He understands how some eras make faith more difficult then others. He will understand how it effects you so long as you remain faithful to him.

Jehu said...

Anonymous,
The slow (or perhaps not so slow) slide towards economic collapse in the US and elsewhere will create a lot of opportunities. Our task, besides surviving the present situation intact is to provide a number of options 'on the shelf' as it were with which to rebuild. The present Republican party isn't a terribly useful vehicle, but it can be and often is, the kiddy pool for the depths of Reaction.

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho said...

Well, while I agree to a certain extent, on the other hand the results of letting the lefties alone doing all of the advocating over how society should be, are even worse. The left has already started open war against us with their disgusting racial quotas and in many places it is starting with anti-homophoby laws. The left does not allow a person to live and ignore them, they want full control, so unless you are a coward and accepts being humilhated without giving them a jab back, you have to react.

So I guess that there is no escape: If you ignore the problem, it will eventually hit you or your kids in the face later on. If you do something about it, you will just stress yourself without much actual result. But at least you are fighting back.

I for one think that the ideal solution would be to somehow partition the western world: Give half for the lefties to kill themselves with their crazy ideas and half for conservatives so that we don't have to be opressed by the leftists. Of course this won't happen, because the liberals want no less then 100% of the western world, but it would be excellent.

Wierdly enough, I think that Russia (ex-Soviet Union) has the most chance of any other western country to be a stronghold for conservatism. They just need to work on fixing their demography, which could be fixed by more evangelization. All of the rest seams to be going in a good direction.