Rather enjoy this blog from iMonk, it is a Screwtape type lecture between demons who combat the Kingdom of God with apostasy. Find it rather close to home as they say.
The Vilesidious Lectures: Advanced Tactics For Apostasy
UPDATE: Vilesidious has appeared at IM before,writing a young protege on the subject of Christian schools.
The transcript of the following lecture was secured through means that cannot be revealed, but as C.S. Lewis said, are readily available to those who learn a few basic techniques. The general conclusion is that the following lecture is part of an advanced demonic curriculum specializing in leading Christians to abandon their faith.
Transcript of Class Discussion. Advanced Tactics for Apostasy Seminar. Professor Vilesidious presiding.
If you would please turn to page 853 in the teal binder. We’re looking at the outline and readings regarding “Advanced Techniques for Apostasy.”
***noise, pages turning, conversation***
It would be important at the outset to continue emphasizing the focus of this seminar: moving professed and generally assumed Christians to the point of abandoning the faith. Those of you selected for this seminar should be completely aware that much of what you learned in the basic curriculum is of questionable value at this level. A survey of case studies, such as Ehrman 32 for example, will reveal that failure in the basics of preventing a profession of loyalty to the enemy is of often the preparation for greater success in abandoning a very public and influential Christian influence. For that reason, apostasy is far preferable for our Father’s overall goals for the human race. Those of you who are able to assimilate this material and put it into practice will find your advancement in the lowerarchy to be substantially accelerated.
My own experience in advanced apostasy is available to you in the syllabus. I would not want to leave the impression that the considerable accomplishments you will observe there were simply the result of academic study. Far from it. I have made apostasy a passion and I cannot imagine any more satisfying contribution to the Kingdom of Darkness than to accomplish the discouragement of hundreds, even millions on the basis of one person’s renouncing of faith in the enemy.
Now, today’s topic is playing the counter to current apologetic efforts and the basic theme of your readings can be stated as the following:
The dominant themes of Christian apologetics provide the outline of a general approach to apostasy by way of creating subversive resources outside of the realms of those “answers.”
We are discussing a response to the proliferation of Christian apologetics that is proving devastating on the battlefield. In the past 10 years, literally millions who have been exposed to supposed high levels of apologetics answers have despaired of God and abandoned faith into the waiting arms of the agents of darkness. Millions more can be expected. A coming evangelical collapse is not too much to hope for.
The enemy himself has never given high levels of confidence to the apologetic task within Christianity, but Christians themselves have followed a general path of emphasizing the intellectual over the actual, the relational and the existential. The enemy’s use of a written scripture as a key component in his program has led to the inevitable and happy exploitation of the academic nature of faith at the expense of true experience. With moderate amounts of work on our part, the impression has been created that “the Bible has all the answers” and all matters of concern, all problems, all difficulties are addressed within scripture in a sort of “encyclopedic manner.”
So the vast majority of apologetic efforts are actually a collection of answers, generally put forward with a ridiculously arrogant amount of confidence. Look at the absurd claims regarding “proving” the existence of God or “answering all objections” to the resurrection. I have see quite intelligent Christians say that all objections to the resurrection have been answered and no other position exists except to accept it as a fact.
All the while, everyone in the audience knows that all dead people stay dead. Their “gut” is commited to the notion there is no resurrection. It’s a laughable strategy, but the apologists and their publishers and promoters are endlessly trumpeting it. Only the vile and unfair tampering and cheating of the enemy can get past the obviousness of such reality.
Now it would do all of you well to stop and watch a video available in the library this week of one Ravi Zacharias answering questions at a state university somewhere, with the accompanying commentary by Bilgewilber and Wretchitorious. They make it plain that the kind of question and answer demonstrated by Zacharias is not of the variety I referred to earlier, but is characterized more by an overall seriousness in considering all questions without pretending that a few scripture verses or bullet points can be produced to end the dilemma. This can be problematic, even devastating. Zacharias is actually humble, which is difficult to watch. I much prefer listening to the internet webcast by ***garbled*** for a better demonstration of the confidence of the NBA ball player and the resulting set up for blowing away the childish structure of answers.
Question?
Calvinists? Yes, but not exclusively, and especially the “presuppositionalists.” Quite an amusing bunch they are. But someone like Josh Macdowell is not part of the reformed movement and millions of Christians seem to think he has answered all possible question somewhere in his “Evidence” books. So don’t be over specific to the type of apologist. Apologists generally operate at a sub-denominational level for the most part. Some notable exceptions. Labels will do you little good. Look for the flaw in the method.
So the basic agenda is to work in the vast- and I mean truly vast- spaces left between the answers and in the whole realms not addressed by the apologetic techniques.
Look at the conversation I monitored just yesterday. “What was the reason _____ left the faith?” Now what is the questioner looking for?
(Student answer) “A single reason. Probably a reason that can be answered by a standard apologetic answer in some answer book or seminar.”
Correct. The questioner is looking for some single issue- like the problem of suffering- to which an answer will be supplied and the problem remedied. It’s quite ridiculous.
In case study 74097 you’ll see a young man with exceptional Christian background who falls in love with a non-Christian girl. In six months, all traces of faith are in full retreat and apostasy is likely. No “issue” is at stake. This is the actual ground of human experience and addressing it intellectually will only work with an increasing minority of humans. All that was needed was a real life choice between what was empty cardboard and what seems like the meaning of life. Too easy. (Of course, the enemy knows this trick as well and has used it for years.)
Another case……62223. This is a fellow who was walking around for at least three years horrified by the notion that God would eternally punish a creature he created in his own image and at one time loved. We took the fellow’s sense of justice and tortured him with it until he was willing really to do anything to get away from religion. He only needed to read a new atheist for 15 minutes and he had permission to dump a God who presided over a lake of fire.
By the way, it’s exceptionally ironic that the creator has endowed his creatures with the capacity to be completely overwhelmed by the implications of love and justice. Apart from Jesus ***mumbling*** – excuse the use of the name- these attributes of God will drive humans to despair. Take almost any of them, but especially sovereignty, justice or love. It’s like being forced to look at the sun. (Something those of us in the spiritual world know all too well.) But Jesus makes the deity tolerable without resolving all questions. To that end, may we all be encouraged by the disappearance of teaching and preaching about Jesus. Another 50 years of what we see with Osteen, and victory is at hand.
So the entire point is to find areas far, far from the chess board of apologetic answers. Despair comes to those who believe there is no relief. Apostasy is sweet relief to those who are empty, tired of hypocrisy, weary of the church, stuffed full of Christian junk thinking and forced to swallow unsatisfying answers. The sign on the bus is brilliant: There is no God. Just enjoy your life. It’s not great logic. It doesn’t answer the quest for truth. It is no foundation for life. It’s utterly inadequate….but to the human in the vise grip of religion, it looks like an open door to relief, even paradise.
They do not need answers. They need community. Relationships. Satisfaction. All those disgusting aspects of Trinitarian creation. We push the view that they are brains in a jar. They know they are children looking for a Father. Your job is to make the search itself a torment so that the abandonment of the search is a pleasure.
Question?
***something about the new atheists***
There is a division on the use of the answer of those bright boys. I’m of the opinion that they are a bit too cartoonish for long term value. But I realize there are millions who find the discovery of a loud and obnoxious atheist to be reassuring. I don’t understand why anyone is cheering Richard Dawkins like a rock star, but I’m old school. His logic makes me shudder, but our program is nothing if not admiring of pragmatism. It works. Use it. But I’d caution against filling despairing, weary souls with large amounts of Hitchens or Harris. The final result may be to swear off atheism as just as intolerable as fundamentalism. No real progress there.
In the end, we are looking to make the feeling of being alone the dominant desire. Leave me alone. Stop thinking for me. Stop promising what isn’t true. Stop preaching. Stop talking. Just leave me alone. Religion these day can produce some wonderful monastic style apostates. They won’t need much reassurance. They just need to be reassured they never have to take on anyone’s version of the Christian God.
One more question?
The Creation “Museum.” Oh I love it. I surely do.
