Battle Field Second Look

What the coming battlefield is likely to look like.

This is the second in a series of considerations on the topic of the American Church and Christians becoming FieldWiseto the upcoming (some say already here) Christian battle against a godless authoritarian state.

The Battlefield - Second Look

So what will this up coming battlefield look like? We presently have the advantage of knowing what it looks like in other authoritarian/totalitarian states. It is underground, decentralized, distributed and covert. It is mindful of its surroundings on the surface and does its works in smaller day to day and "not-so-verbal" ways to be less conspicuous. It is more like missions work engaged in community work building levels of private trust and neighborhood resource. It does not compromise the Gospel, it just doesn't make a flashy show of it as we are more used to.

Leaders are open targets, so there is rarely an obvious pastoral model, every saint has a equal role and pastoral responsibility. This is what I mean by distributed, not one but all for safety's sake. That doesn't mean that there is not a pastor or a network of pastors connecting multiple groups, it means that they take a much more protective and secretive position.

We also have the advantage of previous Church history both with the early fathers and the those of the Reformation. In such a disperse and distributed missions based heavily layperson emphasized environment, they learned to communicate through more stealthy and encrypted methods. They came to rely upon more formalized distributed confessional statements and catechisms and concords or epistles rather than seminaries and training schools. There were two concerns of eminent importance for them to watch for 1. infiltration and 2. treacherous desertion. A third thing, which could be considered a combination of the two, the compromising inter-positioning of the apostate official state Church, had to be dealt with at all times as well.

A common problem has been indicated in nearly every previous instance, that being of available bibles and bible reference materials. We've long lived in a free and open society with an average of 8 bibles in our possession in our house. In recent years printed material has been abandoned for electronic and cloud based fluff. While we have enjoyed a wealth of information because of this, even the treasured works of antiquity, perhaps as no other generation ever has, my fear is that this plentiful harvest is but a temporary blessing unless we silo it in a place that is hard for the authorities to shutdown or watch.

Along that same line, in America's case, we will have a rather rare cause for additional concern as well. In the past 150 years or so other countries have had the resources and ambitious efforts of American Christians to help fill these resource and training gaps. In our time of need we likely will not have this outside intervention. It may be a boast to say that if the freedoms of the American Church goes so to the rest of the world, but it certainly will be chaotic for sometime and other authoritarian minded countries will try to take advantage of our misfortune among their own populations.

Now surely in all of this I am confident our LORD will provide. I some sense I feel that the American Church will be better for all of this, but as is often the LORD's way it may well come down to a pruning right down to a tiny remnant. Perhaps this remnant will be those of us wise enough to have provided oil in our lamps long enough to see us and our immediate generations through this storm. I am also hoping that we do not see this a sign of our LORD's immediate return. Rapture most often is interpreted as we don't have to hang tough and do anything. Sometimes our interpretations can be our own worst enemies. I am sure many in the Russian church early in the 20th century felt that this was so. Same with the mid century Chinese congregations. Our LORD and HIS day of judgment will soon come, but recall that HIS judgment will begin with the house of our LORD.

A final advantage that we have needs to be considered. Our enemy's strategy and movements should come as no surprise to us "For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire..." kjv@Psalms:10:3 and "He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten..." kjv@Psalms:10:11. "Should come" I should say, because to many people (especially here in the United States) feel as if it is foolish boasting for the people of the United States, that they will never allow such a thing to every take place.

Scriptures warn of the direction being boasted about, a godless one world/one economy/one religion authoritarian government. It has been openly boasted about since the time of the German philosophers like Karl Marx. Not only has it been declared what is intended, but also it has been spelled out how they intend to do it. It has been experimented with on a smaller scale. It has evolved and developed and migrated. It has spread, infected, permeated nearly every level of American society. It has confused and conflated and disguised itself as social compassion and has done everything in its power to make Christianity to appear as if it is not. The observable evidence is that this direction is not a empty boast, not only could it happen, it is that it has happened and is soon to happen the rest of the way.

These again are my initial thoughts and there will be many more. Each of us will have to consider their validity and decide to act accordingly.

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