The devil's playbook


It is a very old trick of the devil to charge God with sins of omission. Where was God, that he allowed this or that bad thing to happen? Why did God allow you to be hurt or disappointed, if he watches over you? Or, more crassly, why didn't you get what you prayed and prayed for? Is God...even there?

More that one person has ended his walk toward faith this way: "I prayed and I told God what he needed to do, and he didn't do it, so it must be there is no God." The devil and all the demons have a good horselaugh, slapping each others' backs and hooting, when a mortal says that.

The oldest demonic lie of which we have any record is, though, "Did God really say...?" The devil never tires of that one. If he can undermine people's confidence in the truth and authority of God's word, all sorts of devilish things begin to happen. The bad repercussions may go on for a very long time, once the habit of rejecting God's moral judgment and preferring your own becomes ingrained. You want to be like God, judging matters good and evil out of your own moral abilities? Good luck with that.

There is in the church world today a tendency, called postmodern though it is very ancient in its origin, toward changing old rules and throwing out old beliefs, on the basis that all that stuff is unbearably old fashioned. We can surely do better today, says postmodernism, with the advantage of superior postmodern insight. To say that men and women have different roles in the life of the church, or that the old advice for Christian homosexuals still goes, is, in that view, cruelly oppressive.

The trouble with being your own moral authority is that you are never as smart as you think. We have postmoderns just sure they are doing what is right, for they feel it is right and will not be told they are wrong (for that is judgmental) utterly logjamming unity with everyone else. 

Be careful what you wish for. Moral authority is a dangerous weapon to wield.

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