⁶ Let nobody deceive you with empty words, for because of these things God’s wrath comes on the sons of disobedience. ⁷ Therefore do not be sharers with them, ⁸ for you were at one time darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live like children of light— ⁹ for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth— ¹⁰ trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. ¹¹ Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but ratherexpose them. ¹² For the things they do in secret are shameful even to mention. ¹³ But all things being exposed by the light are made visible. ¹⁴ For everything made visible is light, and for this reason it says:

“Awake, O sleeper!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you!” –Ephesians 5.6-14

I shared the following on my FaceBook feed earlier. It reflects things that are swirling in and around my head/heart. It is rather difficult for me to grasp how so many Christians are so lost in the maze of the so-called culture wars. None of what we’re experiencing right now has much to do with that charade; that is a side-show intended on keeping people divided. Unfortunately, Christians reflect the broader culture so much, we end up divided along the same fault lines as is the world. Personally, as a Christian, the sort of Christianity I intend on following, everything is about the truth. I’m not a skeptic like Pilate who lives under the relativism of: “what is Truth?” No, I am a person of the Way, TRUTH, and Life in Jesus Christ. As such, I am uninterested in being trapped-in by a group-identity, save the communio sanctorum as that is concretely established in Christ’s mediatorial humanity, and realized in the koinonia He has shared with the Father and by the Holy Spirit since time in eternity. What I am saying is this: I came to walk with Christ, and continue to, through radical and even apocalyptic crises in my life; I came to know Christ, as a man, just as I did as a boy: as the One who is Lord. I am subservient to no group; I am ready and willing to be considered a fool over and over again because of the truth; and all of this is so because my life is hid in Christ, as if in the very womb of Triune plenitude. If this sounds melodramatic to you, then you’re unaware of just how dramatic the life of God really is. So, I leave you with the following:  

This really isn’t about progressives versus conservatives. It is about a spiritual battle that transcends such categories. What’s at stake isn’t whether Trump gets 4 more years, but whether or not a greater darkness takes hold of the world than heretofore. There seems to be lots of muddled confusion among Christians in regard to political action, on all sides. We aren’t fighting for Trump, per se, the fight has to do with re-establishing an order that is closer to the light rather than further from it. What is going on in the world is a macro-struggle, that prior to Trump’s arrival, was working and moving forward unabated. Trump simply is not with and part of the plan, and as such is a literal monkey-wrench they don’t want. He is like a zapper that has drawn out all the bugs and crawlers that would’ve preferred to stay in the shadows but must now expose themselves for their survival. If you think that what I am saying here is a conspiracy theory, you are not paying attention. If you think Christians shouldn’t involve themselves with being informed about such particularities, and that we should simply be involved in superficially engaging with IDEALISTIC issues (you know like the term systemic or structural signifies), then you’ve lost the ball.

I do agree, the Christian’s primary job is to bear witness to Jesus Christ through proclaiming the Good News of the coming Kingdom, and the Kingdom come. But that proclamation has implications, it has a domain; and within its domain it exposes the darkness with the Light. Not in an abstract way, but in a concrete way. Concrete in the sense that the idealism so-called Critical Theory (CT / CrT) exposes us to does not touch; in fact it only helps to create an abstract battle with no concrete event-horizons wherein the people can know if the “battle” has been won or not.

Just speaking freely.

“Beware, Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, a cudgel with which I angrily punish. ⁶ I sent him against a godless nation, I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, to take plunder and to carry away loot, to trample them down like dirt in the streets. ⁷ But he does not agree with this; his mind does not reason this way, for his goal is to destroy, and to eliminate many nations. ⁸ Indeed, he says: ‘Are not my officials all kings? ⁹ Is not Calneh like Carchemish? Hamath like Arpad? Samaria like Damascus? ¹⁰ I overpowered kingdoms ruled by idols, whose carved images were more impressive than Jerusalem’s or Samaria’s. ¹¹ As I have done to Samaria and its idols, so I will do to Jerusalem and its idols.” ¹² But when the Lord finishes judging Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then he will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. –Isaiah 10.5-12