The following speech was given at the Assembly of Antichrists, on the 16th of October 2009. This is Part One of the fourteen-part series, THE BIBLE 2: HOW TO BURN CHURCH.
(The speech began with a sadistic ice breaker that only an antichrist would appreciate and thus cannot be put on Facebook. I have edited this out)
Our brilliant subterfuge begins at the over-arching concept of life.
Brokenness.
All of creation now bears varying amounts of dysfunction, some level of imperfection.
Not only does all creation die, but none of it ever achieves its full potential.
Every layer of reality is permeated with digression from design.
The church’s imminent purpose is to restore creation.
Yet for the last millennium at least, the church has continued to fail.
In fact, for the last millennium, the church has been slowly, excruciatingly killing itself off.
All we’re going to do is put it out of its misery.
We begin with a touch of genius.
All we do is change a definition – the definition of sin, Christianity’s famous nemesis.
Instead of dysfunction, we just call it something else.
They’ll never notice.
Our sources report that they wouldn't change their vocabulary to save the world.
Whenever anyone insists that a word they use means something different, they tend to shout and scream for while but eventually they go along with it.
Now, this part of the plan was amusing, because it became quickly clear how many deviating concepts there are to select from, ranging from suffering and separation to wrong, disobedience, and evil.
Sadly, not all five are usable for our mischievous purposes.
The most debatable option is that of separation from God, but unfortunately that carries with it too much of sin’s original meaning.
It does have some potential.
We could use it to suggest that sin is nothing to do with fixing the present creation and is entirely about getting people to heaven.
But it works too well metaphorically.
Sin is separation from God’s design.
Preferably, we want something close to the original meaning (since that makes it easier to deceive our victims), but not that close.
Another option is suggesting that sin is disobeying God.
Because this is the kind of language that Sunday School teachers use to simplify concepts for children, it sounds so beautifully right.
You scarcely notice that sin has just been narrowed entirely down to what humans are at fault for, and completely ignored creation’s state of suffering.
The brokenness within every relationship of society.
Or the inherently flawed communication between all creatures that exists with or without the help of humanity intentionally disobeying God.
It ignores the plane that gets hit by lightning and crashes, killing hundreds of people.
Or the shark that tears apart a scuba diver’s limbs.
It ignores the married couple who fall out of love with each other and break their child’s heart.
We can’t blame humanity’s disobedience for all the suffering that exists in this broken world.
Theologians have tried for decades to do somersaults over this by invoking the story of Adam and Eve and blaming them for the tragedy of sin.
Always the fanciful lot for utilizing wondrous leaps of logic.
Whether or not the story of Adam and Eve is pure mythology, and even if sin was in fact originally caused entirely by disobedience…
We don’t know and can’t know and don’t need to know.
All we do know is that there is now a state of sin outside of our disobedience.
The Christian must strive to fix that sin as much as they must strive to stop creating more of it.
But it’s much more convenient for the church to confront only the sin that makes them uncomfortable.
And a fair amount of sin does not come into that category.
Obesity and environmental deterioration, for example.
Sin being defined as disobeying God works well for our purposes.
It sounds perfectly correct whilst being suitably misleading.
Yet we can go one better.
Instead of disobeying God, we’re going to define sin as disobeying a moral code.
We’re going to take God out completely.
We’re going to replace the Divine with the concept of right and wrong.
It’s beautiful.
No concept could be much more opposed to the Kingdom of God and yet you can rest assured, the church will adopt it without a second thought.
Instead of perceiving design and dysfunction, they will judge the world according to their specific moral code.
Instead of broken people in need, the world at large will be seen as the Christian’s enemy.
Incredible, isn’t it?
A single definition has the power to sever the relationship between the world and its medic.
Try to picture what this is going to look like.
Imagine doctors began assessing diseases only according to the patient’s actions that caused it.
The only solution that could be given would be to stop doing those actions.
If the patient remained ill, the disease might be declared a ‘consequence’ of the patient’s past mistakes – a deterrent for those who might also fall prey to the action.
Never would it cross their mind that the dysfunction that infects an individual is broader than their choices.
Broader than their mistakes.
A moral code – the concept of right and wrong – smoothly distracts them from an understanding of design and dysfunction.
When the individual’s problem has nothing to do with the individual’s actions, the moral code is ineffective.
If the moral code were the only known possible cause, more often than not a moral cause would be ‘found’ anyway, leaving the dysfunctional with guilt and shame.
Imagine church done like that. Imagine the chaos we could create.
Imagine Christians being incapable of helping broken lives because they genuinely can’t perceive a cause beyond the individual’s actions.
They wouldn’t be able to see how to help the drunkard or fornicator who break their moral code except to keep pushing it.
The church would perceive no obligation to the mess that surrounds the dysfunctional.
Only an obligation to make them aware of what a cesspit they live in, in the hope that they might sort themselves out.
It takes a single definition to sever the world from its medic.
The moral code will burn church. We’ll make sure of it.
(Five minute interlude whilst the antichrists debate the nature of sin)
There is now only one threat to our ultimate victory.
The risk is minimal, but we must respect all possibilities.
It is the rise of the old mentalities.
The understanding of them has all but diminished, but there are a few who carry them by oral tradition.
Even worse, there are those who are discovering them merely by practical thinking.
This will not be tolerated. They must be contained.
If rumors of sin as dysfunction got leaked to the church at large, the results for our genius plan would be catastrophic.
Merely understanding the sinner as broken rather than evil may create the most impenetrable compassion known to humanity.
Even if we were to contort and pervert every other philosophy of Christianity, this one philosophy would leave those few Christ-followers who would yield enough love to keep the church alive for centuries.
Their homes would become orphanages, homeless shelters, pharmacies, hospitals, schools, job centers, rehab centers, and headquarters for recycling associations, breeding doctors, lawyers, teachers, care workers, counselors, and politicians with a head and heart for restoring a broken world.
We can’t afford to let that happen.
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