DEFINITION
Our “Western” civilization is Christian. It is filled with wonders and miracles never before known to man. It has borrowed from cultures and ideas such as Judaism, Grecian, Roman and Egyptian certain elements but it is uniquely founded on Christ’s teaching. After an agonizing struggle, which resulted in many deaths, disillusionments, enslavements and imprisonments a remarkable culture and civilization developed. Much of the development began with the early Christians who were not afraid to die for their Lord and the changes His teachings inaugurated.  From 160 – 165 AD Justin Martyr infused Christian culture with, “the Heritage of Greece with that of the Jews and thereby helped to lay the foundations of what would one day be known as Western culture. We have an amazing civilization. It has:

1. Burgeoning science and technology

2. Democracy

3. Universal education

4. Remarkable degree of equality

5. No slavery, no serfdom

6. Freedom of press, speech and assembly

7. Knowledge and efficient systems of storing and retrieving information

8. Travel almost anywhere quickly and comfortably

9. Intercultural exchange, customs, translations and languages are known to each other

10. One day off a week for rest, recreation and worship

11. Religious tolerance

12. A basic morality that allows relatively easy contract and agreements

13. Highly advanced medicine and in most western countries, universal medical care

14. Time not required for just surviving, so that there is time for art, drama, music and dance like no other culture has attained

Our Christian culture is far from perfect. There are numerous aberrations in Christian behavior.  There have been despots and dictators who claimed to be Christians, but the progression has been remarkably consistently liberalizing and civilizing.  In every Western (Christian) institution both the process and development could be much better than it is.  Our Master while on earth was a radical, meaning He wanted to change virtually everything, drastically for the better.  We cannot be comfortably conservative but be energetically interested in improvements that will benefit everyone.  Education, medicine, politics, the judiciary etc. need sweeping changes.  Yet our Christian civilization is by far the best so far. BUT, we Christians are actively throwing it all away and/or passively letting it slide through our fingers with little protest against those who are ferociously and subtly destroying it.

SYMPTOMS OF COLLAPSE

1. Growing confusion among Christians who know so little of what they believe and why.

2. A widening discrepancy between beliefs and behaviors. As a resultant defensiveness and self-rationalizations that take up so many peoples’ thinking.

3. The break up of ancient church communities  - Anglican, Roman Catholics.

4. Increasingly superficial church services attended by people who want to be entertained more than they hope to encounter God in a fresh, challenging way.

5. A weak or antagonistic response to disasters happening all about us: euthanasia, abortion, slavery, injustice, harvesting organs, using the preborn for stem cell cultures.

6. The rapidly rising power and prestige of the sexually disturbed.

7. Rapidly escalating physical and mental illnesses stretching, beyond recovery, medical personnel and resources.

8. Demographic upheavals with people becoming more xenophobic resulting in dark ghettos and inflamed racial hatreds.

9. Economic collapses with the eroding value of investments because of population implosion from abortion.

10.  Judicial conflicts and inconsistencies.

11. “Being led by women and children”.

12. Rampant unlocalized fear with people ready to go at each other’s throats for reasons they know not. The Bible states that in the last “men’s hearts failing them for fear”.

13. Parents murdering or having murdered their own children. This happens almost universally and on massive scale. This has never occurred in human history. No other species does this.

14. The destruction of families with high divorce rates, pornography keeping men and women from being in each other’s arms.

15. Dishonoring the elders beginning with a language (Senile etc.) that is dishonoring.

16. Cruelty and an interest in violence on television that would not be imagined twenty-five years ago. This includes men and women wrestling each other.

17. Discarding traditions as if they were meaningless and old fashioned.

18. Drugs for every human mood. There is approximately twenty-five billion dollars spent annually on antidepressant medication and as much on sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication.

19. Passivity inculcated by TV and the Internet.

20. Increasing power in the hands of media moguls who use it heavily to support their own causes and preferred politicians.

21. The plethora of new laws turned out by many law making bodies the extent of which very few people realize.

22. Little personal integrity so that no man’s word is his bond, but all rely on increasingly detailed contracts.

23. Quasi government, semi judicial thought controlling agencies similar to the Nazi Volksgeriditshof.

UNDERLYING REASONS

1. Personal dishonesty. There is a growing gap between what Christians say they believe and how they behave. Christians will all attest to the equality of all people but do little about the fact some races are dying of thirst and hunger while most North American Christians are struggling with obesity and being out of shape.

2. Christians have lost their ability to protest on behalf of those who cannot protest on their own behalf.  The preborn is fully human and as fully a person as any of us but most Christians do little or nothing to protest their slaughter.

3. The elderly are the repository of wisdom and insight but there is little attempt made by many Christians to keep them from being: institutionalized, euthanized or unwittingly and unwillingly being use for organ harvesting. Many of the Christian homes for the elderly, especially those run for profit, do very little to keep people active and alert.

4. Addiction to television watching and all the resultant weakness and apathy.

5. The split between clergy and laity that began early in the Christian church and has now become almost universal. This is not what God intended. Christians ignore God’s Word, which clearly indicate that all men and women are brothers and all must have a part in their worship together.

6. Disobedience. Instead of obeying God’s command to love their neighbors they have been convinced that they should “love” themselves. This is resulted in a great deal of self-indulgence, laziness and narcissism.

7. Cowardice. Although it is clear the Bible expects the church leaders to be walking forward in the front line protesting various forms of Godlessness. Rather they stand above and aloof from the congregation facing them. If the congregation were to move forward the preacher would have to walk backwards. He would fall head over teakettle, which metaphorically he does.

8. Materialism. Things and pleasures have become so important to Christians that they are afraid to lose any of it by standing up and speaking out. They would hate to lose their job, pension, home, beloved car, or place of residence. If they are not able to leave behind these things they are not able to move forward. Jesus said Christians were pilgrims, strangers, aliens and so they should easily leave their assets, homes and family whenever necessary, to follow Him to the ends of the Earth.

9. No real leadership from church “leaders”. God holds the preachers responsible.   
   Instead of warning Christians of the coming disaster, so many preachers spout the “peace and prosperity gospel.”

WRONG TEACHING AND PRACTICE

1. The evidence of God’s blessing is prosperity and prestige. Jesus said, “You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake,” and Paul writes that anyone who tries to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. With rare exceptions, it is inconceivable how Christians could be prestigious and prosperous and still follow His way.

2. Focus on the Family. This has resulted in parents indulging their children who become self-indulgent and materialistic. It should be Focus of the Family on Christ. When Christ is the focus of our families the family works together, prays together and stays together instead of being constantly bombarded with discontentment and ambitious avariciousness.

3. Call. God throughout scripture commands Christians. He orders them to love. Apart from Christ’s invitation to each individual to accept Him as his/her Savior and Lord there is very little evidence of calls in scripture. Certainly there are exceptions, Paul, David, Moses, individuals who had to step out and make a very large difference. The vast majority of us are part of an army and we must obey rather than waiting for a call.

4. Passion. Christians have been fairly persuaded they should follow their passion. Jesus orders people like a general. It would a most chaotic ineffective army if everybody was sitting around waiting to respond to a call and to their passion.

5. Leadership. Christians have too often assumed that the best leader was the most charismatic person in the biggest church. Unfortunately, the current leaders are not the first into the forum or on the pickets outside the abortion clinic.

6. War. God has always commanded that we did not murder (10, 11). Christ has made it very clear that He would rather that we die than that we kill each other. The kill rate has become the modern criteria for a successful war but people forget the kill rate is highest when you take your enemy at disadvantage. You sneak up on him, shoot him in the back, or obliterate him from above.

7. Mission and Missionary. This has become the responsibility and prerogative of a few while Jesus has commanded us all to preach, to heal, to baptize, and willingly, happily let go of our lives when necessary.

8. Prophecy. Jesus states, “In vain you search the scripture”, especially when it comes to prophecy. Jesus reminds us that we only need to rely upon our God-given intuition and observations to see what is about to happen. “Look at the fig tree when it is about to bud”.

9. Ignorance. When there is so much time available for Christians to learn, they do not read history or delve into science. Regarding the ease of coming to trust in the Lord there has never been a time in all of human history like the present one for making it easy. Science backs Christian thought and morality. Astrophysics has concluded there was a design. The universe could not have happened accidentally. If there was a design there must have been a Designer. Now it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a theist. It’s not a large step from a scientific understanding there was a Designer to realizing the Designer designed humans for the purpose of having friends. When they went their own way and became imperfect He had to reconcile them and that process cost the life of His Son.

10. Homosexuality is innate. This is surely one of the most obvious oxymorons. How could there be any genetically determined characteristic if that particular subspecies does not breed. Yet, the determination of certain church leaders to sympathize with homosexuals because they can’t help it because obviously it’s genetic is splitting their congregations and denominations.

11. Tolerance. Jesus wasn’t tolerant but modern preaching seems to emphasize it. Personally, I am quite intolerant. I absolutely do not like pedophilia, drunk driving, etc. Yet I will, with Christ’s love, treat and attempt to heal anybody of any size, shape, or sexual orientation.

12. The preborn is a “fetus”. Too many churches have allowed this and other dehumanizing terms to become their common parlance. To kill people in wars the enemy is always dehumanized (Hun, Jap, etc.).  The dehumanizing words applied to fetus makes it easier not to think of them as individual people with absolutely unique characteristics. Christians have not protested strenuously the slaughter of approximately 1.5 billion beautiful, intelligent, loving preborn babies in the past ten years. They have not protested at the cost of their comfort jobs and if necessary life so that now their lives are endangered for what is done to the least of Christ’s brethren will be done to us.

13. Handicapped. When it is obvious the handicapped are selectively being terminated, Christians cannot see the obvious incongruity with what they state they believe about the equality of all persons.

14. Elderly. We believe we must honour parents and respect the elderly but many Christians build institutions that house their elderly. Having removed them from sight and sound of the children who should be caring for them, they are left to rot and die.

15. Wanted. Too many Christians have never questioned the idea that “the first right of every child is to be wanted”. It is the most pernicious philosophy ever known to mankind. Jesus states that we are to “welcome” people, particularly children. This means offering, no guaranteeing them hospitality and safety. We bring them into our lives, our families, and our homes regardless of their sex, size, or intelligence or where and when they arrive. Too many Christians state they do not approve of abortions and yet do not protest when they happen because they know in their hearts, that if one of their children became inconveniently pregnant to avoid embarrassment in the church or at the job they would allow their daughter to be aborted of her baby.

16. Global Warming. Without much thought Christians have accepted Al Gore’s dire predictions even claiming him to be a prophet. They haven’t listened to the countervailing voices that show the data is poor, that the computer models are based on data provided by the computer instead of good and reliable data from the environment. Christians really don’t believe that God is in charge of everything. Having created the universe, He sustains it. A quick view of the global temperature fluctuations during the last two million years as determined by ice core sampling, shows that it is quite probable the Lord puts energy into the Earth’s rotation and revolutions to keep it from becoming too warm. This is not to say that we should be careless, but it is to say that we have to put things in the right priority.

17. Ecology is a first priority. Christians forget that God made humans a little lower than Himself and put them in charge of everything. If humans are properly honored and instructed the rest will flow in this right direction. Placing the tree or a seal pup in value greater than that of the preborn baby has turned the whole ecology of God upside down. If we put trees first the end result is that people are resented and preborn children are murdered.

18. The Locus of Our Being. Too many Christians believe we are to be confined to life on this planet. Scripture states that when God returns He expects to collect His children from the four corners of the earth and the heavens. He has always encouraged science and exploration. We should be now inhabiting planets and investigating the rest of this amazing universe. I believe we should be now exploring and possibly inhabiting other planets. We should be investigating the rest of this amazing universe. Surely it is when humans are turning outward realizing they have enormous untapped resources that they are less competitive and less likely to destroy each other.

19. The model where is Christianity is the most successful, flamboyant, charismatic, white-shoed preacher. God has made it clear that His prophets are to be found in the wilderness, usually poverty struck.

20. Chastity. This is a good idea but it has gone so badly wrong. For many young Christians this means having sex in any other way but intercourse. The end result is that they are bonded to each other and addicted to all kinds of sex but the most natural intervaginal intercourse. When it comes to marriage they literally can no longer engage in lovemaking, children-creating. Unfortunately, so few Christians understand about pair bonding and how 9 mechanisms create lifelong bonds (marriage) whenever anybody has sex with another person regardless of where that happens.

CONCLUSION
After so many centuries of Christians struggling to create a civilization such as ours the modern Christian out of selfishness, laziness and materialism is allowing a very precious gift of our Father to quickly dissipate. It is time all Christians got on their knees and plead to the Lord for forgiveness and mercy, particularly for so little effort put into protecting preborn babies and healing so many million who are deeply damaged. It is only when we obey Christ’s command to love the smallest and most helpless of our neighbors that He can truly bless us. We fail to realize that His Law of Love is a reciprocal effect. When we love others we are loving ourselves. When we dehumanize and disregard the fates of those who are most vulnerable we are making ourselves most vulnerable to the deceiver and destroyer of human life.

REFERENCES

1. Byfield, Ted (ed.). The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years. Volume II. Edmonton. 2002. p 91. ISBN 0-9689876-1-1.

2. ?…Isaiah 3:12 (led by women and children)

3. …(men’s hearts failing them for fear)

4. …

5. …

6. …

7. …

8. …Matthew 10:22

9. …

10. Exodus 20:13 (thou shalt not murder)

11. Matthew 5:44 (love your enemies)

12. …

13. …

14. Matthew 24:32-36 (fig tree)

15. ?… Matthew 25:40

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