fear 10.0

First Published November 2019.

​​Once in a great while I write something that has “legs” (at least I think so).  I offer again a reflection on fear in an age of fear.  ​C.S. Lewis, in his book “Screwtape Letters,” took on the voice of a demon trying to spread evil in the world. The book is a series of letters instructing how best to advance the cause of Hell in the face of the Kingdom of Heaven.  

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​Humbly, I offer this message I intercepted from the “IT Department in Hell” (you think you get weird stuff in your social media). If you know what the enemy is up to, it can help:
“To all demonic administrators and lowly minions of evil:

Please be advised that we are currently upgrading the anxiety/fear/terror software in your human subjects to version 10.0. (Frankly, we’ve been at this so long we don’t know what iteration this really is…). Added to the operating system are new applications related to the great unraveling we have initiated since the last election. These improvements enhance the hate level for those with opposing views and the despair level regarding future outcomes. If we continue to make good progress dividing people into imaginary little binary groups (one of our greatest inventions) they will fall apart. We grudgingly must say “glorious evil work” to those who have so successfully turned their subjects in high places to replace any dangerous commitment to the common good and the rule of law with farcical attacks, conspiracy theories and childish conduct. Bravo.

Of course, this just builds on the underlying sub-routines that steer your human subjects from thinking for the common good, replacing that creator-driven design flaw by aggrandizing the way the world revolves around their “individual” identity. The me-centric matrix has been a brilliant addition, and we merely deepen its hold on the false reality algorithm built in the basic operating system where community is the basis of identity.
Minions of the Unholy One have been placed in powerful positions saying, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” This grand lie is a boon to our reprogramming of civilization into a disparate seas of lost souls suspicious of all and dedicated to self.

Remember, if we can effectively frame every decision around “the self,” civility, civil loyalty, and democracy itself will eventually collapse. (I think you will find that our master and lord of darkness is delighted at the progress on this front in recent events. We claim the credit, but must admit, sometimes the human species does our work for us). Our progress toward a system that completely negates all sense of concern about the subject’s neighbor is ongoing.

Some of you have pretended wisdom and dared to ask questions about the growth of the human “community” surrounding the deliciously disastrous degradation of creation, society, democracy, and other foibles of human community. You fail to see that the negation of any sense of neighbor extends to all creations and creatures of the Enemy. If your subject will not raise a finger to help the human next door, certainly, they will not care about a tree. If the person who looks different down the street can be identified as an enemy instead of neighbor, the mobs will form. Besides, because they are being reprogrammed to think only of themselves, they will be so overwhelmed by the scope of civil unraveling they will retreat to watch TV about it, at most. They can only address the problems they face together. If you are doing your job as demons, that won’t happen! Just tell them it’s hopeless to recycle, protests, vote, speak, or that the facts of the matter are a conspiracy. 

You need not worry (though by mentioning this, we revel in knowing you now are) about many of the foundational processes running in your patients. Replacing the divine enemy’s reality of abundance for all creation with the insidious lie about never having enough will continue to result in panic, poor choices, greed, heaps of fear and the delightful erosion of the soul to a bite size morsel. You will note we have expanded the anxiety and terror related to scarcity to time itself. You should be seeing increasing devotion of time in all manner of activities that fill the days of your subject beyond carrying capacity. The successful rejection of the sabbath nonsense provided by the creator, has led to the fear that your subjects are failures unless they are busy, productive, active, or whatever, every waking moment. In fact, success is now being seen at eroding sleep time with activity which overloads the subject’s ability to ward off our attacks. That subjects are able to pass this on to their spawn is gratifying.” All for now. Keep up the evil work.

May you all burn in the fires that await the fearful,

Wormwood – Director of Human Sin Software

Fear is the opposite of faith. Not doubt. Not hate. Fear. It seems to me that with each passing day there is more and more that frightens us into lives full of despair and hate; that lack meaning and struggle to find peace. We have everything, but we’re empty.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in one of his marvelous sermons said this:

Fear is, somehow or other, the archen­emy itself. It crouches in people’s hearts. It hollows out their insides, until their resistance and strength are spent and they suddenly break down. Fear secretly gnaws and eats away at all the ties that bind a person to God and to others, and when in a time of need that person reaches for those ties and clings to them, they break and the individual sinks back into himself or herself, helpless and despairing, while hell rejoices… Fear takes away a person’s humanity. This is not what the creature made by God looks like—this per­son belongs to the devil, this enslaved, broken-down, sick creature. https://politicaltheology.com/overcoming-fear-sermon-dietrich-bonhoeffer/

The Bible tells us to not fear or not be afraid 655 times, by my count. The antidote to fear is the absolute declaration that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Fear is the soil in which sin and evil grow. The bully on the playground (or the halls of government) act out of fear. The narcissist acts out of fear that they don’t matter. The greedy are afraid the barns are not big enough. On it goes. When fear has stripped away our humanity, we lose empathy, compassion, and we lash out is hate. Our nation; our world; our city; our lives are filled with fear. And none of that must be. Christ is the truth that sets us free from fear.

Think of the 5-10 things you fear most. Write them down. Now ask yourself what Christ, through the power of the Spirit living in you has to say about these things. I think it will begin with the assurance of the savior – Do not fear.

“Those who are still afraid of men have no fear of God, and those who have fear of God have ceased to be afraid of men. All preachers of the gospel will do well to recollect this saying daily.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Pax Christi – Pastor Tim Olson
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Copyright 2019 Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
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