We Should Always Live Like Someone is Always Watching and Listening ~ Cicero ~ |
Living under the secular and corrosive rule of Caesar, Cicero understood the cultural reality of censorship. However, from a spiritual viewpoint it is actually very true that someone is always watching and listening. It is not Caesar but the Lord Jesus Christ. But State censorship in any culture working under the name of the Disinformation Governance Board and formed by the Department of Homeland Security will conclude with a collision between the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and the guarantee of religious freedom. Christians living in America must become aware of the corrosive control of censorship and how it can cancel a culture. (Have we not seen this in Portland and Seattle lately?) It seems that for most Americans, history has to do with what happened last week or maybe one year ago. But for those who know modern world history, you know what censorship results in and the kind of people who use censorship to control others. It is, of course always presented as a safety precaution that is essential and good and even loving. But as Proverbs 14:12 reminds us, “There is a way that seems right to man but its way leads to death.” People such as Hitler and Goebbels, Stalin and Khrushchev, Che Guevara and Castro are classic examples of what the prescient mind of George Orwell had in mind with the 'Ministry of Truth.' Stalin coined the term 'disinformation' and Orwell saw the danger in 1948 when he wrote “1984.” The body count was in the multiple millions. Frightfully similar to what happens when your propaganda machine changes a word from baby to fetus or from “unborn person” to “unwanted body part.” As Aldous Huxley reminds us, “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” For those who do not realize the trajectory of where some of these political mandates will lead, Voltaire reminds us; "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Christianity is founded on the Christ who is the truth. Christianity is framed and formed on what Francis Schaeffer called “True Truth.” Jesus said, “My word is truth. Sanctify them in truth.” The Apostle Paul said the church is to be “the pillar of truth” and “present the word of truth” even as we live in the land of liars. There is no premium on stupidity in the Christian life. We must demand the time to think and develop the habit of thought. If we do not, then Huxley will be right - People will come to love their oppression and to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. Serving Him with you until He comes for us, Fred |