The Future of Christianity: It Will Be Subterrainean

It is certain that American Christianity will be driven under ground. This is a serious statement made by one who expects to experience this. American Christianity is under attack from its traditional opponents, other religions, and from an increasing secularism. These forces not only believe Christianity to be false but believe it to be baneful. It is the this secularism that is using the new ideas of political correctness to wage war against the last group that can be defamed with impunity.

It is important to understand the strength of the enemy.  Secularism controls the government at every level and so controls the legal system, the educational system, the transportation system, the communication system, and all of the always increasing the security system. It controls the media through licensing the television and radio stations. It even controls the Internet.

Secularism controls the legislature, and it routinely passes more laws to increase its own power. Its funding is virtually unlimited through taxation of everything and everyone.  When it does not tax to raise money it uses the printing presses that manufacture endless supplies of fiat, paper money. It also has almost unlimited borrowing power. It never has any month left over at the end of money.

It further controls people through employment. Government at all levels employs millions of people. These people will be very reluctant to fight against their paychecks. They are capable of being coerced in spying.  They will do the government’s bidding.  Law enforcement is the sole province of the government.  They have the power of the badge, which is the gun.

The rise of hate speech laws (already in full flower in Europe and Canada) will soon be used to muzzle those whose message is the ever politically unapproved “Jesus is Lord”. Hate speech laws will be used to silence churches and pastors who speak out on moral issues. One man’s righteous preaching is another man’s hate speech. The unpopular statements of those brave enough to speak out will be squelched by the speech law enforcers. Public discourse will be nil. Even private conversations will be subject to the same rules. Censorship will be the normal routine. It is one thing to speak and have the crowd disapprove, but when the government has the legal authority to act against you with fines and imprisonment it is quite chilling.

We see the brake on free speech in the so called “free speech zones” that are set up to control the crowds. These zones are absurd. This entire country is a free speech zone. The government has no right to limit free speech on public property. In fact, the last time I looked at the U.S. Constitution the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and peaceful assembly was still there. But since the Constitution has been defined as a “living, breathing document” that changes itself to meet the times, the courts may render this idea void.   Who gave judges the right to do this?  Is right in the Constitution?

The judges took this right to themselves by themselves. This is simply theft. It is an arrogant usurpation of power the judges do not rightfully have. This arrogation gives the courts unlimited authority over everyone. It gives the totalitarians who run the government the legal cover for their tyranny.

The fairness doctrine imposed on the broadcast media is another choke hold on free speech of Christians. This evil doctrine will be applied to everyone, but Christians can expect to be the targets of the bureaucratic enforcers. It is always the case that precedent is set by first attacking an easy target. Since most Christian radio and television stations do not have huge legal budgets with which to battle the government, it is almost certain that these stations will be among the first targets of “fairness” enforcement.

Tax exemption status most churches have is a weakness in disguise. Most churches think that tax exemption is essential to their survival. Most churches do not have a lot of money, so this helps keeps them going. Tax exempt status is a state issued license to exist. The state in granting this privilege now has a method of control over the organization. If the state does not like what the church is saying, the tax authorities can revoke the tax exempt status. The state can also bring criminal charges against the organization for misusing its tax exemption and demand payment of taxes for the period in dispute. Churches taking this state granted largess have really waived their Constitutional rights of immunity to government control.

How will the churches react? It is always difficult to predict specific future events, but it is most likely that there will be a separation of those who really believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ from those who merely give an outward appearance of believing. This has been the case in the past, and there is no reason to believe that this patten will not prevail in the future. Christianity began meeting in peoples homes and may once again do so. This is the case with the unregistered churches in China.

There is a growing movement in this country to become unregistered.  Right now it is confined to a small group of fundamentalist Baptists , but the movement is likely to spread.  When the crackdown starts the movement will spread.  This has lots of implications for existing churches and their allied organizations.  It is time to start thinking things through.  Preparation is the key to survival.

There is hope. Our hope does not come from government, the source of our problem; it comes from the God of heaven and earth. Governments have always tried to silence or control the church. Their success has not been so good. The true church will survive, even thrive. The government can only control the false church. So be it. The false church deserves what it gets. The government may very well be God’s appointed method of judgment upon the false church.

That Christianity, true Christianity, will be driven underground is no problem. I just have to find my shovel.

The Average Thoughts Averaged to Be Correct

The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecke.  Doubleday, New York, 2004.  296pp., end notes, no index.

In contrast to what is thought to be the case, the collective intelligence of the group is lower than the sum of the members, Surowiecke argues that the group is actually smarter than the individual members.  He cites the group’s estimation of the dressed weight of a slaughtered ox in an experiment run by Francis Galton at a fair in England.  The group, largely non-expert average fair goers, gave an estimate that was off by one pound from the actual weight.  No one guess of the more than 800 estimates submitted was that close.  But when the guesses were averaged the result was amazingly accurate.

In more recent times the same type of experiment was conducted in a college class room using a jar of jelly beans.  Once again the average of the guesses was more accurate than any single guess.  Other examples, these from the real world, would be the stock market reaction to the space shuttle Challenger disaster and, oddly, the finding of the wreckage of the lost U.S. Navy submarine Scorpion in the Atlantic Ocean.

The way this works deal with group dynamics and the way individuals think.  To be effective, the individuals in the group must be independent of each other, a diverse lot, and each possess a different set of what Surowiecki calls, “private knowledge.”

The author survey the literature in the field of the social sciences to glean insights into the ways groups from committees to juries form opinions and conclusions.  It is when the principles are violated or are absent that the groups are subject to the herd mentality.  This, Surowiecki says, explains fads and bubbles.

In this age of the expert, yet the experts are usually wrong.  We tend to lean to their advice because of the technological nature of our modern lives.  But the experts never agree with each other; opinions are in perpetual conflict.  The distrust of experts in not new; Surowiecki cites Thomas Jefferson in preferring the opinion of a plowman to that of a professor on moral issues.

This is such to give us pause that the opinions of the elite in government and industry are not as brilliant as we are given to believe.  In fact, if we look at the evidence, when the elite get it right, it is often the case of pure luck.

A more realistic view of the professional managers would be to look to the space shuttle Columbia disaster.  Here the managers on the ground thought they had a problem with the heat shield on the shuttle when on take off the tiles were struck by a piece of foam that had fallen off the fuel tank.

In the meeting to discuss the problem, there was no dissent by any of the members of the committees.  This is largely due to the homogeneous nature of the members: they were all veteran NASA employees that came to the agency directly from college.  They were all working with the exact same information and with the same presuppositions.  The exchange of ideas was discouraged,  and the group leader expressed the idea that nothing could be done anyway.  No new information was sought.  It turns out that NASA did not even know the extent of the damage.  So nothing was done.

When done correctly, the average of the group can do very well, better than any expert.  When done the way it is usually done, the result is a burst bubble, or a destroyed shuttle and dead crew.

The book is worth the effort to read.  The writing is passable in the most part, a bit dry in others. The end notes an abomination.  First they are end notes.  But worse of all there is no note reference on the pages of the text.  One must get the idea that there is a note from the quotation marks.  I hope this was a decision by an expert.