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At twilight the eye is easily tricked, and no less the heart deceived. It is an hour interfusing darkness and light, and inviting occult activity. It is a place within the human heart where the Magician rondevouz with the rebel. Justice is turned to wormwood and righteousness into a godless standard. But woe to man and all the earth, for even the physician is a murderer and the priest a friend of Ba'al. Creation is in decay. The caretakers do not listen to the Keeper. The Keeper brings life to the world, but He does so through the caretakers and they have ceased to hear His Word. They drown out heaven as a dog bays at the moon. They play and dance at the hour of twilight. They flirt and consort with elemental spirits; they burn with evil passions and an inflaming pride. They are partners with the Magician, and they have a rebel's heart. A rebel's heart! Come with me as we enter such a dark soul to see the rebel's hideaway. But be warned! A soul captive in the Enemy's territory is filled with demonic surprises at every turn. Yet come! Walk beside me as we travel into a heart that is turned in upon itself, and away from its Keeper. As we descend the darkening steps, a supernatural chill grabs hold of us, sending tremors down our spines and weakening the fiber of our knees. Our expectations are charged with the sense that we are about to discover a power much greater than the rebel at work within this human soul. A poignant vapor materializes that twirls and whirls like dancing ghosts who still carry the aroma of their decay: Dying, dying figures-- Smiling, smiling a delight! These phantasms, a miasma, rush to seize us as partners, like a mist rising up over the grates of hell to cling upon our paling figures and pull us into the River Styx. Here we remember nightmares, and our noses wrinkle back into our faces as all our senses are momentarily blighted by the odor of death. The ghostly figures before us sound the notes of a deep, far place. We hear the disjunctive cacophony of a chant carried to our ears like infertile seeds torn and tossed in the uneven tempest of a desert storm. At length, we come to a chamber door. Inside, we hear a curious cackling as if the old hags of Macbeth are talking and laughing while brewing a witchly fate for some event in the affairs of history. A massive door now before us, we could never have opened it, had it not on its own, swung loose to welcome us. Inside we see, but dimly, two figures nearly touching heads in the exchange of conversation. To the right stands the hearth, but it affords little benefit to us since only dying embers remain to give light and heat within the chamber. With his back to the hearth, and so as to conceal the features of his face, sits the Magician. Facing this dark lord we see the rebel and lord of the house as the fading embers glow within his eyes and he bends his ear to the whispers of his guest. The rebel's christened name would be unlike any present, past, or future offspring of Adam. It is a name that speaks of his unique creation. As a son of Adam, his surname would be Will, his residence the heart of hearts, and his arena of activity, human history. On the far wall there stands another door heavily barred from the inside. Piercing through the edges of the door, and through its every crack, there breaks a radiant light as if heaven itself were just outside and waiting to enter. And as we listen, we hear an inviting knock as it sifts through the cackle and chant of the Magician and the rebel. We must open our hearts to the Light. Only with hearts fortified in Him dare we consider again the words of the Magician and the rebel. The Magician is neither heard nor seen clearly. He works in the hour of twilight within the interfusion of light and darkness. He has come to me. I could have been a captive, but in Christ I saw, yet only in the Magician's fleeting shadows, the danger I had faced. The Magician also has come to you. His footsteps are sounding, even now, outside your door. O yes, he will come to you and seek to bar your heart to heaven. He has sought this in your past, and still he comes to you as a sweet lover to seduce you from the Light. Like Aphrodite, he takes on any form to please your reason or senses. You would never suspect, though I tell you plainly, that the thousand faces of your many mistresses are really the one, formless, darkness which looks out from the blank space of that hooded figure. You see him in the thousand thoughts, things, people, and aspirations that invite you into darkness. You are tempted to linger on every image that is spoken by the Magician like an ill-fated clown doting the morbid fantasies of his perverse lover. How do I know so much of this unholy affair? To my shame, I had once consorted with this devilishness--though I called it by another name. To my reason and my senses I threw the crumbs of every passing whim--though I starved for a meaty course. And to my impending doom, I had barred the doors of my heart against heaven. I know the strategy of the Magician because I was once a rebel and comrade in arms for his service. Now my life, my writing, is a great contrast from this past. Then I would never have spoken through allegory and parable. At that time, I spoke the clear logic. I understood the world of experience in terms of substance, premise, and definition. I did not ask the cosmos to reveal meaning, but accepted it on its own terms. I had left behind pie-in-the-sky Christianity, to follow the practical vision of humanism. I thought I had become free, and wanted all my brothers and sisters to experience freedom from superstition and supernaturalism. I wanted no more senseless chatter of a common man's God. What cannot be kicked, cannot be believed. What good is a bodiless Noun floating within a child's desire to feel safe? I was done with God and all those angelic and demonic spirits who roamed with me in my younger years. Any notion of God was dying, and with it rusted away the chains that bound humanity to some transcendent Other. I felt free! It did not occur to me at the time that I had only transferred my allegiance. A finite creature cannot set himself free. I was not free, but I had interpreted my new worldview as freedom. I had not left behind the quality of faith when I gave up on God, but had placed my faith in what man could discern and do. On the surface, my new persuasion seemed a strong man's drink. It was one that only daring and courageous minds could swallow. It mocked the finality of death. It seemed to plug me squarely into the real world. Instead, it numbed me to my partnership within creation. I was intoxicated with the notion that I was totally my own sovereign on the plane of my existence. The universe was absurd, no doubt, but I was its master! I was its master, if for no other reason, simply because I had discovered its absurdity. I knew that life was meaningless. This did not cause me to despair. Instead I felt like a god who could carve my meaning within the amorphous universe. Mobility in the face of the absurd--isn't this the greatest form of existential freedom? Sarte and Camus tell us so. With them I believed that all meaning had become relative to my decisions. Meaning itself had passed from the realm of creation into the reality constructed out of my every thought. Who cared if there were no God! Who bothered about even the possibility of some remote deity out in the cold cosmos! I was greater than Sisyphus! I would no longer push the boulder by which the gods--or the meaning of deity--had curtailed my freedom. I stepped aside of it and let it roll down into the dark abyss as I walked freely higher toward the dark abyss. I believed that I had broken the power of God and gods who had sought to bind me to transcendental truth. The world was no more the master and meaning of my life. There was no God telling me, or humanity, the way in which we must go. I and all mankind could walk to the top of the mountain and not even the universe could prevent our ascent. So I exercised my newly won privileges and walked to the top of my mountain. Here I stood at the final frontier of human thought and looked down over the precipice onto the other side. What I discovered only reflected back that which I had already assumed: Life below and life above faded away into the absurd and meaningless--but I still remained! Cogito ergo sum. I had concluded that I had destroyed the absurd simply by "finding it out." At that time I felt free of the burden of heaven and earth because I no longer sought my meaning within a Creator or His work; but I was tricked. I had listened to a dark lover speaking fancies within my heart. Do you see how easily one line of reasoning can diminish the greater reality? I had let go of one small boulder formed from the dust of creation, and I felt free of all creation. I absentmindedly disregarded the fact that my walk up the mountain was footed upon earth and rock. I forgot that I too was formed from the soil and therefore was in organic kinship with the earth. Even the mountain of my existence was merely one of many, and so the absurdity that I thought that I saw over its precipice was really only the limit of my vision. The vista of my existence precluded the greater mountains, extended landscapes, and vast oceans of reality. I could climb no higher than my own mountain of experience. If I saw nothing beyond my mountain, it was only because reality expanded beyond my sight. This new development in my thinking did not change my course appreciably. As I began to see how my existence was rooted in the reality of vast creation, I could have turned to acknowledge the Creator. But devilishly another suggestion was sweetly whispered into my ear. I soon found that I was fascinated with the Eastern philosophy of Taoism. It appeared to be a purely natural metaphysic. What was most attractive about Taoism was that it was an existential naturalism: It was a statement concerning life rather than a pre-packaged cosmology. Through Taoism I experienced a new kind of freedom. Though I finally had to concede that I was a creature who could never act beyond my existence as an instance within the Tao, I found this itself liberating. Before, though I would not have for a second admitted to it, I was uneasy at being so naked and alone within the world of existence. Taoism made me a part of the whole and a spoke in the wheel. I was free because I understood the way of the Tao, and could adjust to its blessings or blows--fall as they would. My beginning into Taoism was refreshing, but I had an impossible time trying to live the Tao. Its premises were fine for parlor philosophers or for savoring under a willow tree with a hook adrift in a tranquil stream, but in the rush of twentieth century life I was forced to be specific with what I held to be generally true of existence. The people and situations of my life proved that Taoism was too archaic and spoke a Saxon tongue within the world that I knew. It became more and more clear that what I believed through Taoism must be translated into the language of today. I never did discover how to rework Taoism, but being a fickle lover of philosophy, I soon discovered a new lens for viewing the meaning of my being (or "becoming"). For the last two centuries and longer, certain disciplines within philosophy have been in travail to explain the universe without the need for any agency transcending the realm of nature. Its philosophers had begun to explain the universe as a neat and closed system of "Ideals" or corporeity. Since the universe was closed, they argued, man is able to investigate it and trust that, given enough time, he will rationally conclude the faculty of its operation. Any notion of transcendence would only introduce an unpredictable (and after all, "meaningless") variable into the equation; so transcendence was not allowed into the expression of natural existence. It took various theologians little time to incorporate naturalistic dogmas into their religious cosmologies. Some theologians concluded that God was actually dead or had departed to another solar system. There was a school of thought that contended that God remained alive and necessary to our cosmos, but as the philosopher Hegel contended, 'God' was only that which designated the full explanation of all phenomena. There arose theologians who used the methodology of the cave--naturalism--as a higher criticism which discounted the miraculous and supernatural as inconsistent with reality, and ironically they reduced much of Scripture to esoteric symbols which they considered prescriptive, but not descriptive, of God's work within history. These concepts of the cave progressed well into the twentieth century, and for some, God became understood as a slave within a process that He did not Himself create. Naturalism has spawned many definitions of God. However, from Wieman to Whitehead we understand one central theme: Whatever God is, He is inclusive within the creative process and is unable to escape its inherent prescriptions. Accordingly, Yahweh has become a lesser power to the elemental process within the cave. As with the Sumerian pantheon, the God of Abraham is once again ascribed lesser than the elemental gods of "Heaven," "Earth," "Air," and "Water." The words of Heraclitus echo into our time as God, man, and nature are enslaved within the elemental process. The formulations of contemporary metaphysics are much more prosaic than the grand images of the early Greek philosophers, but the central issue for theology remains naturalism's premise that God is an inclusive agency within a natural process. Like a man whose spirit is sentenced to live eternally within the flesh of time and space, so God is here said to be forever a slave within the mechanism of the universe. The God who spoke to Abraham as sovereign Lord is once again a mere deity performing His function within the elemental flux of nature and society. O Abraham, the first pilgrim, would that your spirit could move God today that He might speak the word that breaks the spell for our generation! Our metaphysicians have been in league with the Magician, and together they entice your children to worship the Dark Prince as though he were the Almighty. The doorway of our prison cave is fortified eclipsing even more the light of heaven, as Naturalism seeks to enslave our existence to the brute of nature. As the heavens know, the Church needs the kindred spirit of Father Abraham to break the gaze of the Magician: We are mesmerized and our spirits are held spellbound within the caverns of our rebellion. What is the bewitchment that naturalism, in all its forms, has brought upon the Church and subsequently upon all creation? Simply stated, Naturalism insists that we must work from observation and the faculty of reason to the expression of existence. The historic faith--the faith of Abraham--claims that God and His offer of abundant existence is beyond nature. It is often veiled within experience. Reason therefore cannot grasp the totality of human existence within divine providence. It is functional to grasp pieces of Truth like a cup holds bits of water, but a cup can not contain all the waters of the planet at any one time. Reason cannot contain the greater realities of transcendence. Even if it had the desire and means to assault heaven, reason could never channel the oceans of transcendence into a systematic of human truth. Reason does not flow naturally from concrete observations to indisputable facts, but is directed and misdirected by the human heart. As Martin Luther insisted, the vicar of reason is Lord Will, and the vicar may chose to serve either the Devil or God Almighty. Have you ever tried to challenge a naturalist? Have you ever attempted to point out to him that the lens of reason is ground within the human heart? Have you ever sought to tell him that the scope of finite observation is limited to a tiny planet in an ocean of stars? Have you dared to present the premise that an inexpressible realm of transcendence dwarfs the universe itself and is held only in the grasp of revelation and faith? C. S. Lewis captured the blindness of the naturalist in The Last Battle of his series, The Chronicles of Narnia. In this last volume, Lewis depicts the tragic situation of dwarfs who had passed through the "door" from this world into a greater world: They had passed from the barn-stable of their past existence into the world of paradise, but they continued to experience only the reality of a dirty stable. Drawing together into a close circle, they could not experience the glorious world in which they presently existed. The dwarfs had entered a paradise that contained and closed the world from which they had departed. Through the "door" and on the other side, they sat bewildered and frightened. The dwarf's reality remained a dark, dirty barn, and they were unaware that the hour was daylight and that the sun shone warmly in a crystal sky. They saw no light or beauty. When heavenly food and drink were offered to them, they tasted only straw and stable water and so they spit them out. Their bewitchment did not allow them to see the greater reality. They saw what they chose to see. If revelation is precluded, and faith does not lift us higher than observation, then the whole world of transcendence is eclipsed within the cave. If one tells a naturalist, whether that person be a theist or atheist, that one must not depend upon mere empiricism and logic, the naturalist will twist a brow and ask in return whether we should then depend upon illusion and illogic. Either one or the other for the naturalist, never realizing that a greater reality than both lies in the fabric of existence. The faith that marks the true Saints was never, is never, and never will be categorized as simply "rational" or "irrational." The life of the Saint transcends these categories and bursts the earthen shroud of planetary existence. The Saints then transform nature--from the heart of the Saint transcendent Truth breaks in upon our planet! Nature itself becomes elevated and orderly as the Word becomes incarnate within the people of God as they caretake the soils from which they were created. But the naturalist is offended and worries and worries that such talk is merely folly or downright dangerous to the tasks of philosophy and theology. It always appears to the naturalist that if you embark upon a course that is not exclusively based upon Aristotle, empiricism and logic, necessarily you must walk the path of Plotinus, illusion, and illogic. "There is substance to empiricism and logic," they argue, "even it is straw and stable water when compared to the higher, loftier, but illusionary revelations of the supernatural." They prefer to see by the twilight of the cave rather than the brilliant revelations of God as they enlighten human existence. Revelations of the supernatural, as revealed within the biblical narratives, are offensive to the naturalist. They do not conform to the methodology and prescriptions of the cave. Theologians of the cave are aware that these revelations are rooted too deeply to be pulled easily from the heritage of the Church. Therefore, they listen to the Magician for the alchemy that can turn the Word which comes from God into a paler bread, but one more palatable at twilight. Nothing supernatural is to be served to the Church, at least not through the hands of the naturalist. Naturalists set the table of theology with an altered diet. The Resurrection of Christ is no longer a victory over Satan, Sin, and death. Under the pen of the naturalist, the Resurrection no longer speaks of a sinless life, violent death, and unnatural resurrection. Through the hands of the naturalist Christ's resurrection becomes a simple story made up in the lips of the ancient Church to symbolize some vague hope, or the "Great Idea" as it is ingressed within the material process to redeem the future from elements of creative entropy. No wounds of Christ on the cross and in the hands of Thomas! Only a kerigmatic fable for faith in the human heart--nothing supernatural actually occurring behind the walls of the cave... I had a dream when I was a student within my second year at the seminary. In the dream I passed through a hallway with several others. Suddenly it appeared that whatever we call the soul--the unity of will and consciousness--had departed our physical bodies. These bodies then tore off in a mad frenzy and the soul of each person took on the form of a new body and entered into a large cave. In many ways, this chamber within the rock resembled a gigantic domed stadium converted into a restaurant or lounge. Individuals were scattered about various tables as they ate, drank and passed the time with conversation. I was euphoric! I knew that something awesome and wonderful was soon to take place and that we were now in the transition from one state to another far superior. The process of transition was already beginning as my body began to manifest new properties and powers. I was able to levitate into the air. I felt ecstatic, and could not fathom the solemn tone that pervaded the whole atmosphere of the chamber. I then discovered that all the people in the cave believed that this cave was all that there is to existence. They had accommodated themselves for life within the dim existence. I protested, but to little avail. Why? I then saw a seminary professor in a far corner who was lecturing to a group of students who surrounded him. He was in the process of explaining to his proselytes that this cave contained the sum total of their existence. As I again protested to the professor, he began a long series of drawings and gestured to the cave as evidence to support his position. He never noticed that I could fly! His students drank in his words like neophytes savoring their first sip of sacred nectar stolen from the gods. Post-modern naturalists seek to have us believe that this world is all which constitutes the scope of reality and the meaning of God. Moreover, many priests and prophets today are the source of this deceit as they fill the positions of pastor and teacher. Our churches, Christian schools and universities, too frequently serve the menu of naturalism. Even professors and teachers who personally believe in the supernatural, unwittingly often give student--to eat and drink, the diet of naturalism and humanism as it has seeped into so much of Christendom's world view. Today the gurus of naturalism explain the world as one complex machine. They can neither answer questions as to how the machine came to be nor what defines the boundaries of its mechanism. The universe is depicted like one grand old clock that was never made by a craftsman and it has no shelf upon which to sit--it is quite literally all that there is. Before our mind's eye we have the eerie picture of a clock adrift within the vacuous, black sea of absurdity as it ticks away time which measures neither how far it has come nor where it is going. The process just continues but it neither comes from any significant beginning nor does it lead to any meaningful conclusion. Can you see what the implications of this worldview are for the meaning of existence? Can you discern how easily Sartre, Heideggar, Camus, and other modern existentialists have been tricked to believe that what surrounds man is the gaping presence of absurdity? The clock ticks, the process continues, but it comes from nowhere and it is going nowhere. Existentialism that seeks to establish meaning within the closed cosmology of naturalism can only lead to Dasein and despair. The person seeking meaning from a worldview prescribed by naturalism enters further into the cave that prevents the source of meaning from enlightening human existence. Meaning does not lie within the fabric of nature. The clock only has meaning in the craftsman who made it and uses it as an expression of his will. Human existence has meaning only as it grasps through faith the will of God. The will of God fashioned a mansion of unlimited rooms, and our existence is like one clock lovingly set upon the mantle of God's kingdom: The universe has a Creator, and time measures the significant encounter between a loving God and His people. This encounter moves the Saints to express love within human relationships and toward the ecology of this planet. This expression is not man deduced and implemented, but God revealed and enabled. Meaning is sourced within God. Why, then, does man seek to disregard the Overworld? Why is it that man pulls into the dark cave and to his own doom? As the Fall narrative of Genesis makes clear, the answer to these questions lies within the interaction of our will with the bent will of the Magician. The contention of the cave is that man can be the lord of his own existence. Often, the phrase "of his own existence" is used to mean "the race." Many humanists do not argue for a privatistic view of society, but mean to assert that humanity is in control of its values and priorities. This is the humanistic platform: Man exists within the logical framework of the empirical reality within the cave. There is no transcendental truth serving as the blueprint for interpreting experience and for building human community. The naturalist chants over and over again, "And we shall be like gods!" This chant is a lie without substance. It is a specter that feigns life but cannot be held or loved. Truth is concrete, but always God given. Truth expressed is love. Truth and love find their unity in God, and those united in God experience Truth and Love. Man can guide his life according to the prescriptions of the cave, but this road always leads to absurdity and despair. Death fills the cave with its decay and aroma, but brilliant minds in service to a perverse will use Aristotle to tell us that this fragrance is the blossom of life. The cauldron of this witchly deceit boils and a mist rises from the brew like phantoms from the River Styx. "Drink! Drink of this lovers' potion!" is chanted in our time. "The broth makes your senses whirl and numbs the brain to the question 'why'--the question 'why'!" We are told that the cave is dark but that in its shadows lie the sweet pleasures which delight the heart, please the senses, and manufacture riddles to excite the mind. Never are we told that the light of transcendence would expose these pleasures as decaying corpses animated within our hearts by a demonic presence. Have I painted the rebel's heart too harshly in the disjunctive colors of evil and perversity? Have I overstated my case in purple prose? Is my poetry an offense to humanity? I fear these questions. I am not afraid because these questions threaten to expose an exaggeration within my words. No, I fear these questions because I hear in them how deeply calloused and blind our generation has become concerning the lurking places of evil. The rebel may argue with my vision of his heart only because he no longer recognizes that his thoughts and deeds are the cogs that crush human flesh and spirit through their sum effect upon history. To the rebel comes this word of God: Because you have closed your ears to heaven, you are now in partnership with those who have brought perversity into history. Together you mock the martyred flesh of Christ and the Christian Saints, and it is you who set the table for the Holocaust within Germany. And all the tragedies of history are but appetizers for the final course that you will set within history. To the Church of Christ comes this word of God: Because your many priests and prophets no longer speak the Word of God, but whitewash humanism, you are responsible for the calamity and end of history. Judgment comes first upon the house of God. Awake! Why do you follow worldly ministers who take you down to death? Why do you prefer the death-shadows of twilight to life-giving brilliance of God's transcendent Word breaking into the world? It is no small thing when the church no longer proclaims transcendental Truth. Only this Truth can instruct the human will in life and love. If Lord Will does not listen to the revealed Word of God, then creation can only degenerate into death and lust. God's Word, not instinct or human reason, brings order to creation. God's Word created all things, and also sustains all things. The agency of transference from heaven to earth, is Lord Will. When human will substitutes anything in place of God's Word, the consequences are deadly. Man is created to caretake the vineyard of this creation. Regardless of our critical persuasions concerning the creation narratives of Genesis, it is evident that man is different from all the rest of creation. Before the Fall, man's proper care of this world would keep the garden in a state of goodness and beauty. Human agency is instrumental upon reality. Man is the caretaker of creation, but as he is willingly beguiled by appearances and the Magician, he leads humanity and all creation into ugliness and decay. The world in which God has set us as caretakers continues to starve like a child torn from the breast of his mother. Yet God loves the world and could not let us or it fall finally away, and so He continues to care for the world through those prodigals who were and are returning to Him. Sadly He has watched as the world denounced and killed the servants of His Word, and finally His own Son. The world listens to the Magician's song, and it is a siren's welcome which lures man and creation to their doom. Catastrophic destruction within our future can only be avoided by a return to God's revealed Word. This Word is the source of hope, truth, promise, harmony, and knowledge of the living and communicating God. It sings a song so sweet that the whole of earth cannot contain it, nor the starry heavens! The awesome truth and total power of God's love and will are not understood through logic and empiricism alone, but they are precisely what is needed to keep our world from a final demise. As contemporary Christian apologists, such as C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer have argued, God's Word is not irrational. It only seems irrational to those who seek to make it fit within a closed cosmology. God's word cannot fit into time and space, but it seeks to permeate and vitalize creation. As an individual joins his will with the will and love of Christ, this person becomes empowered by the Word to bring life to creation. Our union with Christ is an existential and not a theoretical reality, and as the branch remains attached to the Vine, the nectar of love and life flows into the world. But more and more citizens of the world are falling from the Vine. They are bewitched rebels who look for God, or "the good," within the prescriptions of time and space. They do not see clearly, and what they do see becomes misrepresented. They do not understand that we now stand at the threshold of history's conclusion, and that it is fatal for the world when the church does not carry the transforming, life-giving power of God's revealed Word. Naturalism has brought the curse of Moses into our existence, and often through the Church. What is the Church? Is it the institutional structures that bear the name of Christ? No. It is more than "Roman Catholic," "Lutheran," "Baptist," or other denominations. It is the body of believers throughout history who trust in God's Word and form an invisible unity through faith. The problem with defining the Church as the invisible unity within the body of Christ is that it would require the manufacturing of another term to describe the church that the world sees. Yet even if all the errors of the visible church were collected together and attached under another name, it would imply that secular society is responsible for the malpractice of Christianity. It would imply that true Saints do not sin, make errors, or become seduced by the ways of the world. The Old and New Testament make clear that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. The Church, therefore, is the presence of Christ in the world. The Lord seeks to be incarnate within people and institutions, though both are frail and corrupted. God is like a father who works with his children though they are clumsy and slightly devilish concerning the lessons they must learn. All generalizations concerning the Church must include both individuals and institutions which are apostate, and those who are faithful. It was with this solidarity of reference that the ancient prophets spoke of "Israel." Only God can finally be the judge of those who are truly His returning prodigals. At present, the Church is composed of both living branches and dead wood. The Saints attached to Christ are pruned that they may bear more fruit, and the dead wood is marked for gathering and a consuming fire. The problem faced by the Church today can be paralleled with Israel's new beginning within Canaan. Even as Israel was forced to discover the hand of Yahweh in situations totally strange to her tradition, so the Church must find the hand of God in the twentieth century science and technology. To deny science and many of its splendid achievements would, in many cases, be the same as missing the work of God within creation. However, to serve science as the lord possessing the answers to human existence is to bridle the prince that he might pull the ass in the cart. The Church must forever be true to God's Word, which Christ said is not of this world. The Kingdom of God is not to be contained within earthen vessels. Revealed truth remains beyond the boundaries of mere logic and empiricism. But the Word has broken into this world. The child of God encounters existence through the Word, and by the Word becomes instrumental in transforming creation. If mankind seeks the power for abundant living through reason and observation alone, then the light of Life is eclipsed, and we die. Darkness even now sends our world into disorder and death. Spellbound under the Magician's words, global society measures the passage of time, but its direction has been lost. The eschatological considerations of life have been obscured by a vapid cosmology. The sanctity of human life has been demeaned by the insistence of naturalism that human beings are the product of a mechanistic cosmos. Like father, so the son--neither with soul and valued only for utility! Draw the line! Define the person! Follow a strand from the Renaissance, and darken the world with deductions from an anthropocentric naturalism! Christianity has become a euphemism for humanism even as the worship of Yahweh had become a front for the cult of Ba'al. The Church today too often serves man in the name of God rather than God for the sake of His glory and His love for man. The end of all being is the happiness of man. The whole creation exists for the happiness of man. Or conversely, man is the enemy of creation and His survival is no more important then the continuation of any other specie. It's a strange and deadly brew served up from the Rebel's heart when God is absent, or God is viewed merely as a suffering Spirit within the process of nature. Many of our churchly philosophers warn us against all meaningless talk of transcendence. They translate the Bible straining out what does not fit into their naturalist assumptions. They are spiders who spin webs to capture the existentialist who lives through God. These theologians live in the cave, they make their traps in its dark corners, and they will consume any prey whom they catch moving toward the supernatural claims of Scripture. They see well in the twilight of the cave--and this sight is power in a world enslaved by finite (but inflated) reason. They know well the specters of death, but they see them as life. They want us to be their partners. Like experts in the ploys of chess, they refuse to let us leave the game, because the game for them is the only existence that they know. And society loves to have it so! More and more rebels are being nurtured within a godless society, and they love being told that human life is not bound to anything beyond their own reason or appetites. "Do not ask a woman to carry a child within the womb," the rebels cry, "abort it if inconvenient!" And thanks be to the misuse of science and social philosophy, that we can sterilize our motives and means to destroy, by defining a relevant "person." Who placed boundaries on the globe or within human development? Did God? Or what quantitative measurement makes one color of skin more human, or one stage of development within the body's maturation less human! Did God? If we kill from the race of Adam those who are unborn, it is only because we are rebels who sacrifice, as did our fathers before us, at the altar of Ba'al. Ba'al gives his children the right and mandate to use others that those in power might receive some increase. Woe to the earth! The physician is a murderer and the priest a friend of Ba'al. Who is safe? What fruit will not be eaten even though it sicken all of civilization with a sickness unto death? Even now sex is worshipped at every bookstore, theater, and video outlet. No longer is sexuality a means for a man and women to share a committed intimacy and bring children into a safe environment. "Set no limits upon our sexual appetites!" cries the world and mimics its priests. "Love and lust--it's all the same! We live for our appetites! Let the weak be warned!" O my Church awake! Soon it will be too late. Even now the Morning Star draws near to the horizon and twilight shall be no more. Exposed will be all your falsities and your harlotry will be made known. The courts of heaven will judge that many of your priests taught your people that there is no right or wrong! That it's all permissible for others to die if it furthers their desires! That there is no existence beyond the belly of the cave! Woe to the earth! The sentence for all is that the door of death will slam over this planet. The whitewashed walls of humanism will crumble. But to the returning prodigal, the door will open to a new Eden, and to the rebel--my pen fails to describe. [All contents copyright © 1980, 1998 David Anderson] |