“Ultimately, Satan’s strategy would be actualized even more fully in the realm of personal identity, which would come to drive the politics and the economics of the free world in ways that few had foreseen or could imagine. It would be through that realm, buttressed not only by politics and economics but also by science, education, entertainment, and even spirituality, that “forbidding to forbid” would come to be hailed as the enlightened ethic of the free world.”
Forbidding to forbid. That does seem to be the free world’s mantra. It has seeped into the way that we think about personal identity—especially sexual identity. It has become such a major part of the way we identify ourselves that it plays a huge part in hiring or firing someone, getting that scholarship or not, being popular or not, the list goes on. People in the free world are forbidden to disagree, for example, with the trans ideology. Not supporting it translates to “hating” the trans community. People are forbidden to restrict sexual content because it translates to being prudish and close-minded.
“As John Rist puts it, human history is always a “conflict between a monotheistic God and a race of men inclined to will their absolute autonomy.” Sex either humbly and faithfully serves God’s purposes or it accords humans the most arrogant, virulent autonomy.”
Pedophilia, animism, polyamorous relationships, and so much more is coming to the surface as the free world is using sex arrogantly and autonomously. Outside of God, no human being or created being can function well because by definition none of us can exist without Him. Any step away from Him means it will be a distortion of what He meant it to be.
Here are some paraphrased snippets of a long quote/idea: Sex’s alliance with science and atheism was its declaration of independence. As science came to be defined as “empirically verifiable facts” (and no longer as a teleological cause), it gave rise to the philosophy of scientism: “nothing exists apart from empirically verifiable facts.” When sex is studied this way…sex can’t be for procreation or for anything. When science examines sex in this way, as Augusto del Noce notes with concern, “all that is left is vital energy.” Any restraint on that vital energy must be regarded as “repressive.”
The free world is fighting hard to define anything that doesn’t allow the “vital energy” of sex to be used in all sorts of depraved ways as “repressive.” Because identity has been attached to sex or sexual “preferences,” the Church in the free world struggles on taking any kind of stance on such matters in fear it will be perceived as unloving and judgmental. And yet the Church is seen as the enemy of the sexual revolution simply by its existence. They are the sexual oppressors who are trying to impose ideas of modesty, purity, and restraint upon humans’ “vital energies.”
It’s becoming harder and harder for the church to argue against the sexual revolution because a large part of their way of thinking has seeped into our own “contemporary understanding of Christian marriage.” Both LGBTQ+ marriages and Christian marriages are currently based on “spiritual companionship, mutual fulfilment, and romantic love. But as Stephen Adubato notes, it is not the romance in marriage that mirrors the relationship between Christ and the church but rather the martyrdom.”
So, “before we seek to teach anyone anything about sex, before we protest the sinful self-creativity of others, we ourselves must repent, submitting our own self-created lives back to God for his redemptive work while learning what…Christian tradition has always maintained about these things.”
As I write these things, I am writing it mostly in self-repentance. There is so much in me and the church that is rotten and yet I continue to see God’s mercies pouring over us again and again. The Groom is calling the Bride to submit to Him. Are we listening to Him? Are we sitting at His feet? Or are we too busy being “authentic” and building up our own kingdoms?
**Every quote in this blog is from the books <Preparing for the Underground Church> and <Planting the Underground Church>.
A closer look into Eli's special thoughts 