CHAPTER 4

 

Suppression by Expression

News 263,

 

The Advertiser, Feb 22, 2003,

 

1

War produces some wonderment.

 

WHO, asks the correspondent in Saturday’s Advertiser, in World News, is going to lose, their god or our God ? … except that he uses a capital for the first term, and condenses the question accordingly. That is why it can be a question for him.

 

His view is much the same as it used to be when we were fighting Germany in World War I. How can  two Christian nations be helped by the one God to fight and win, in each case ? However, there was in that case a direct expedition of martial vigour, to subdue and conquer, and it was not appreciated. It was nothing of God to do that! In this case, it is nothing of God to have a false prophet announcing his programs, as he has for so long and with such astounding failure, though he is still named^*1.

 

President Bush certainly is sounding like a preacher of evangelistic leanings, where the topic is war rather than peace, though to be fair, with the objective presumably of peace. It is hard to see however, amidst the coals of fire the writer of the news article  appears to have in store for President Bush, why that leader should not indicate that he wishes to bear the nation’s grief to God, at the Islamically stylised atrocity of September 11; or why he should be held in contempt for stating that he is looking for the faith with which to attempt solve the nation’s problems.

 

In Australia, to be sure, there is a vast hesitancy to talk of the power of our Creator, rather than of our own right arm, though there is for all that, no little faith in the former on the part of many. Thus the news writer may indirectly do a service in this, that he brings by his own example, to the light the feeling of those shamedfacedly norms which so tend to afflict this country, as if only self-belief were normal, rather than pathologically blind to the only One capable of being a just object of faith.

 

The bombast of false prophets such as Muhammad or the pope and their kings (such as Stalin for the pseudo-prophet, Marx, and much of the Western Establishment for the null theory of Darwin^*2) has always tended to be obstreperous, and just as the wheat and the tares can be confounded (as in Christ’s parable, where the wheat and weed were not to be distinguished simply until mature), until the event discloses its result, so here, there is an end. America as often noted on this site, has been much astray in forming a partial Islamic alliance, and praising that religion through different spokespersons, since this goes far further than gracious concern  for the well-being of all! (cf. Red Alert Chs.   6, 10 Part 2).

 

Again, it is now wooing Turkey most actively, with scores of BILLIONS of aid offered, via Colin Powell, while building up that nation’s infrastructure in a way which could help make of IT, another Iraq which, in its day, was helped with arms via Rumsfeld in another administration. There appears a profusion of collusion, inept compromise, but just as mixed chemicals in pollution may be complex, so the pure is clear. But where is it on earth, except in Christ, whose word stands while all others fail! (Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Chs.  6,  8, Lord of Life Ch. 9).

 

So expression, reveling in relativity, mixes 2+2=4 with 2+3= -10,000,000 as if the mere fact that the things can be expressed lent verisimilitude to their natures! Functionality, verifiability, validity, antiquity, continuity are merely a few of the precise and requisite features to be demonstrated in any attestation of the One who, being God, invites: “Come, let us reason together …” (Isaiah 1:18, cf. I Peter 3:15, Romans 1:17ff.).

 

 

2

 

Meanwhile a somewhat similar sign of the times arises in the flamboyant sounding theatrical campaign mentioned in the same edition of The  Advertiser. From childhood, one actress has been delighted in that highly imaginative and intriguing work,  The Witch and the Wardrobe; and now in spectacular interpretation, she is to present it to the world of art. It is however admitted, after the splash, at the end of the article, which is considerable in size, that there is a special religious element in this work of Professor C.S. Lewis. The actress featured, we learn,  has DELIBERATELY DOWNPLAYED THIS CHRISTIAN DEPTH IN IT.

 

Why ? It is, she is reported to have exclaimed, because she is not doing the presentation of this work of C.S. Lewis,  for a church. She is, she affirms, doing it for the general public.

 

Now this seems strange, since the way it is expressed is this: she has deliberately downplayed on stage “the book’s Christian subtext.” IF it is the BOOK’s subtext that is muffled, what does the public she has in mind have to do with an interpretation which intentionally moves from what the book declaims ? Certainly in this country, and in many, the thought of something specifically Christian (as distinct from sacramentalist, superstitious or sensationalist) might not draw the many, and the thought of something of this kind being presented without its moorings might actually attract the type of dissidence and almost shame of that past, which in this country  led to the greatness in vision and Christian vigour and perspective of so much of this land’s law and lore. Is this however, box-office, and is that the reason for the apparent distortion ? Is it an endeavour to tap the minds of those alienated from God, to something less defined ? Or is there what is so common, an elemental desire to MOVE FROM CHRIST.

 

The book is a clash between good and evil, it is felt: why bring in Christ ? Yet why cut Him out or muffle the message ? What is good without Christ ? Unauthorised by God, NOTHING is good, but thinking makes it so, being mere subjectivity, desire or misplaced force. (Cf. News 19.)

 

Certainly, it is not because the author has this in mind, that such a range of mere ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is in view; since this is specifically disclaimed. So the suppressive genus of drama and of journalism interprets the wish of the people, who having been brought up in a country which for (comparative) peace and content, leaves many out of sight, now appear in multitudes,  like Jacob of old, to ‘grow fat and kick’ (Deuteronomy 32:15).

 

Jiang Zemin had learned a lot since Mao, when he declared as reported, that religion may well outlast both State and party! (Cf. … Immovable Faith, Ch. 6  *2). The new antichrist who is waiting so eagerly in the wings of history for his debut, rather like those who, well-rehearsed, await their number being called in the ice-skating Olympic dressage, will assuredly be MOST religious; and indeed he even is to have a supplemental religious dignitary addressing the need to worship him, a sort of religious specialist, and indeed it is the Second Beast who is to dress as Lamb, though wolf within, and seek to glorify the First! (Revelation 13). Goebbels and Hitler would give some measure of prototype for such a propaganda duet, or Huxley and Darwin (cf. That Magnificent Rock, Ch. 1).

 

It is however not the relief of being religious and so avoiding some of the most inchoate thought ever produced from man (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7), which is to the point, but the necessity of coming back to the simple realities that man-made religion is no better than man-made tooth-paste or even dental whitening, that changes the sight, but not the bite; and that plight of the bite is total, when it bites but air.

 

The famous Principal of The Prairie Bible Institute, L.E. Maxwell, in his work, Crowded to Christ, pointed out well that there was with the Jew of old the danger of SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS as perfection was sought in their flesh and in their will (cf. Romans 10); but now it is not this perversion of Christ’s gift of perfection which is so indeed, but available only via the transaction of the Cross: it is not this which is the trouble. Rather, he affirmed, this generation is tumbling into INDIFFERENCE TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. It is not, therefore he declared, the need to remove the obligations of careful conformity to the commandments of God, which is the call, but the necessity to regard them. More, it is necessary to realise that the capacity to relativise can come validly, only when you absolutely know what you relativise, so that your immersion of your topic in its genus, has some outside wisdom and knowledge. No, not even the relative can be affirmed of truth until you absolutely know that it is so, so transcending it at a step.

 

Suppression by expression is now as common as an Al Qaeda curse or human missile. When the last missile misses, and the last curse is cured in its salt, and explodes verbally with a slithering auditory slide, the cause and the cure of both will be as apparent as it now, with this difference, that the judgment will sit, and the appearance will quit. What works has always been ONLY ONE, and what matches the most stringent test is ONLY ONE, while the One who as One came to show His reality, is ONLY ONE. No one else, and nothing else has even a repertoire for science, let alone peace for the soul or the world. (Cf. Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 9, Ch. 1, News 100, Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 7, Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch. 9, Barbs … 6  -7, News 116, 122.)

 

Nowhere else is their remedy for the relentless arrogance and dismissal zeal of irrational man: not merely in detection, inspection and correction, but in pardon, illumination, regeneration and reclamation, amidst rescue and of course, redemption from the scourge of justice (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 2), and a simple withdrawing from the debasement which blinds, into light. As logically necessary, ONLY HE can do it, for the blind and the spiritually asthenic, the systematically spiritually shrunk; and as lovingly apposite, HE DESIRES for all what He does where HE is received, and it is called SALVATION. It is don in that glorious restraint of His love, which prevents mere determinism, in performing Himself what man cannot, yet doing so not for mere pleasure, but good pleasure, the desire of good!

 

It is only in what God has uniquely, distinctively and exclusively provided (what giver is generic!) that the celestial, having shown its wings, is willing to carry you aloft past the scuttling of rats, the ferocities of great cats and the sticky earthiness that clings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE

 

*1

Red Alert Ch. 10, * 4 provides a useful summary of some of the elements with reference to much more, and so is reproduced here.

 

The Koran denies the redemption in Christ, His vicarious and substitutionary atonement, His deity and His kingdom that shall not pass away. As such it is a heresy more articulate than most, more direct, in its dismissal of Christ. Like the rest, it gives faint praises, which deny the realities of the Bible categorically. Unlike some, it is highly explicit. Like all heresies, it uses the Bible and abuses it, appeals to the Bible and dismisses it. It is unusual in combining spurious materials both from the Jewish sources (outside their canon) and from those relating to Christianity.

To call it 'good' is by implication to call the Christ of the Bible 'bad', since it mangles its testimony, as did Israel the Christ. Such action is by no means unknown in the Bible and is in fact part of the predicted rebellion against reality (Hebrews 10:20,29-31, Jude, Matthew 24:24, II Corinthians 11).
Those who so characterise Islam may or may not be aware of what they are doing. It is an anti-testimony to Jesus Christ.

The relevant details of this anti-Christian religion have been considered as shown in the Index, under Moslem, in both SMR and The Rest. In particular, note Lord of Life Chs. 4 and 5, esp.  pp. 91 and 112  respectively, Light of Dawn Ch. 5, and SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff., 91, 986ff., 1080ff. , Barbs, Arrows and Balms, Highway to Hell. See also *1 above.

 

See also Divine Agenda Ch. 6 and SMR pp. 829ff..

 

*2

These gentlemen, Marx and Darwin, were crypto- as well as pseudo-prophets, in this,
that their words were meaningless in the intensity of their sheer irrationalism,
except in terms of a Maker and a Meaning, both of which do not inhere in the meaningless

(cf. SMR Ch. 3, Christ, the Wisdom and the Power of  God  Ch. 6, It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 9, esp. *1, et     al., News 94, TMR    7, TMR 8, Three Fogs, Little Things Ch. 5, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 19, 29).

Storming into being, their theories rested on a support logically necessary, in model absent, in a welter of that spurious combination of invisible imports and impossible exports (cf. esp.TMR 8, Three Fogs).