2025 was a year which personally was one of considerable change, some deeply awkward circumstance, and one as demonstrated by the fewest number of posts that I have written in 15 years, demonstrates that many things demanded my time and brain power. I have found this particular period of the Christmas break, singularly helpful as not much has been demanded from me.
One thing that 2025 was particularly noteworthy was, was the rise of what used to be considered far-right; by people who found it convenient to weaponise the apparatus of Christianity. The most totemic event in this respect was the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who has now become a golden calf on the platform formerly known as Twitter and where insufficient fealty and loyalty is now met with filthy insult.
Across the Atlantic, the carcass of Christianity was worn as a skin and paraded around like a trophy, especially in events like the organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson. It featured Elon Musk, who hasn't fallen very far from the tree of his childhood apartheid dreams in South Africa, and issues like immigration, free speech, and national identity, have also been paraded through the public consciousness.
So-called "Christian Nationalism" is often touted as the cover story for this, but scratch the surface even just a little bit and we find that none of these people know anything even basic about the Bible, certainly nothing about anything that it teaches, and point blank display nothing of the virtues which should follow as a result of being transformed from the inside.
While we do get some sense of Civic Love, it is not expressed as philos but superbia and hubris. The other qualities which should be on display if "Christian Nationalism" was actually genuine should be a sense of agape, joy, a striving for peace and forbearance, demonstrations of kindness and goodness or faithfulness, maybe even gentleness and self-control. Admittedly, against such things there is no law, but in the current political atmosphere, there is also no display or practice of these things.
Believe me, when as a Christian, I say that I am just not convinced that there actually is any kind of Christian revival going on. What there appears to be are charlatans, one of whom is embodied as the President of the United States, who have found Christians and Christianity as a soft target to fleece while pulling the wool over Christians' eyes.
If anything 2025 was one of those years where people, after having being fed a diet of indigestible right-wing formula, simply have no stomach for solid teaching any more. What we are currently seeing is lies an junk-food-opinions tickling people's fancies. Truth is simply not acceptable to people who are trying to chase mirages.
I write this first post of 2026, with more than a hint of skepticism. Fear not though because amidst this current age of mercantilism, there is always hope. There has to be. If not, then the parading and preening by those people who have no other gods other than profit and power, will have won.
No comments:
Post a Comment