A captured and divided church

Musings on the challenges and opportunities for the Bible Belt of America

How often do I go to church? Both of “all the time” and “never”! The spiritual war and “marathon of faith” journey over the last few years have involved nonstop collective reflection on the righteous thing to do. I haven’t read the Bible — I only write books, not read them — but I do take onboard pretty much every quote from scripture people send me, as they intend to offer me a shortcut to wisdom. Yet my childhood experience of the Jehovah’s Witnesses makes me hypersensitive to religious spirits, and allergic to self-righteousness Churchianity. I cannot reprise the experience of counting the upholstery studs on the back of the pew seats wanting it to all be over.

The last month has seen me travel extensively around Tennessee and North Carolina, and it has been a chance to interact with many locals, as well as observe the passing cultural scenery. I am an outsider with my own perspective, and have been “immersed” in information warfare for many years. I have been accused of being a “baby Christian”, but the spirit of truth pursued by “anons” in many ways puts us far ahead of the religious mainstream. What others take for granted as “the way things are” is up for reevaluation as we unpack centuries of deception and corruption.

What I cannot help but notice is that the body of the church — the people who follow The Way and are willing to be persecuted for it — is held captive to legalistic doctrines and is divided against itself. There is a spirit of competition which sets itself against that of Creator. The signs on the road literally invite us to turn to the left or right, and ignore the guiding voice behind us. It is not my place to reconcile the beliefs and dogmas that result in our being separated from one another and the holy spirit, but I can tell you that those paying the price are the weak and innocent, notably our children.

When we turn churches of worshippers into quasi-business, it is a category error, mistaking the activity for the venue. The purpose of Christianity is freedom from being under the law, as we no longer require it to reconcile our divergence of self-will; submission to divine will avoids corrupt judges usurping God and making up their own truth and morality with findings of fact or law. By participating in the rituals of the administrative state, notably contractual matrimony rather than covenant marriage, religious churches put children in danger in family courtrooms, where godly men and women are persecuted and then gagged against speaking out.

A pastor who is paid by his congregation is serving two masters, God and Mammon, and they don’t cohabit in our hearts. It is appropriate to have one’s unusual costs of care covered by the group, but ministry is not a professional gig. If you associate the church with its denominational brand or allotted commercial plot, then you have opted out of the spiritual war at some level. The law is our guardian as the competing factions seek dominance; until we submit to divine will, we must respect the law. At the same time, the powerful will attempt to over-extend the law (and taxation) to enslave us to the will of lawmakers, and the money changers who back and buy them. Once you disconnect from the spiritual insurgency and become “establishment”, you attach to the decay of the temporal, and lose sight of the eternal.

A functioning church protects its members when they refuse to “go along to get along”, and the unjust laws or unrighteous judges force iniquities upon us. This is especially the case when we are offered counterfeit legalistic versions of sacred institutions, with birth, baptism, and marriage being figural issues of concern. The conversion of newborns into bonded securities that are traded behind our backs is debt slavery. Light is being shone on this, and the exposure of the complicity of the churches in creating tax serfs gives prospect of an existential crisis. Add to this the war crimes under Covid, often with enthusiastic clerical support, as well as the illegitimacy of the lawmakers themselves due to rigged elections, and a seismic cultural shift looms.

Many have turned away from the more established religious venues for charismatic churches. I had the opportunity to observe one by proxy for some time, and how it was building its own kingdom ahead of that of the Almighty’s. The children were shipped off to their own ghetto ministry, while the “showman” did his thing in the tent with more “sellable” spectacles. Charity was dispensed with little regard to stewardship or need. While more humble and authentic in some ways, and with many redeeming features, these churches still do not give solidarity among their members, protecting those subjected to oppression or injustice due to refusal to submit to abuses of the law. Each one is its own “mini Rome”, offering “new Romans”, with “improved local laws”. The essential mission of salvation through exit from the law (via divine will) is lost.

My time in America has given me the chance to go to Old Salem, NC, and sample a little more of how things used to be, and have become. The specifics of the experience at that location deserve an article of their own. The essence is that the “Old Moravians” have lost out to the “New Moravians”, much as America has been turned against its founding mores by liberalism and Cultural Marxism. The result is spiritually ugly, if only extrapolated from one unpleasant incident. Yet these places did once have a singularity of purpose, and a unity of spirit. The community had one church and worshipped one God, not splintering ultimate veneration into ancient books, religious icons, or the Saviour who said not to worship Him, but only God.

Stepping further back towards the roots of America in its current form, I had a pleasant surprise at Bethabara Park at the outskirts of Winston-Salem. This grossly underrated historical site brought a clearer vision of the healthy relationship of the people, the church, and the state — the uncorrupted Moravian culture free from the modern re-interpretation of Old Salem. “Where we go one, we go all” would be apposite for this community — they lived together, fought together, farmed together, and grew their faith together. There are no billboards for competing churches; if you have a different vision of the sacred, go be separate elsewhere in a different village.

“It really doesn’t have to be this way” is amusingly illustrated from the key to the site map. The “Pleasure House” from 1764 was a building that married couples took turns in to enjoy some “private time” together, and to show how pro their Creator they are. The people whose spirit was so strong they could relocate across an ocean to ensure the purity of their faith were not afraid to act in practical ways aligned to their own legacy. What do modern churches do to support the creation of families? How many preachers really understand the difference between covenant marriage and contract matrimony? When would a vicar dare to turn away business of a couple who ought not to say “I do” because they “are not”?

America has never had a singular church, but it is a nation founded on faith in a Creator, and belief in all men having inalienable rights that cannot be privatised as privileges. No doubt there were schisms, arguments, and discord even among the Moravians at times. Yet they did not feel moved to split into competing factions, at least based on my superficial readings at the visitor centre. I cannot imagine them tolerating for a moment having to pay for a license to ride in a “horsed carriage”, or to seek a state license for a holy union between man and woman, or hand over their crops to a taxman. It has been a creeping co-opting of the church to the legalistic state over many centuries, so we have to go far back to see life before the “aberrant normality” we presently suffer.

The people who founded modern America clearly had something going for them. Without making them into false idols, perhaps it is appropriate to consider “what would Ann Aros” do, every bit as enthusiastically as “what would Jesus do”? There was a spirit around that has become marginalised, under the yoke of political correctness, engineered social division, and tempting material comforts. I cannot imagine them being content in a small community with two or three under-sized meeting places, lacking ornamentation and craftsmanship, and supplicating to property and income taxes. Just because everyone else accepts the status quo doesn’t make it righteous.

Watching the hurricane floodwaters lap at the foundation of the lakeside church at Lake Junaluska was a jarring experience. I know a lot of the civilian relief effort is being coordinated via church groups and faith communities. It is wrong to damn the religious bodies for being imperfect; most people are doing the right thing most of the time. It is not that they are doing anything overtly wicked — it is that a lack of vigilance makes them tools of wicked agendas. The single most vulnerable point seems to be marriage, as self-will is celebrated with parties. Few would refuse a wedding invite based on discerning spiritual misalignment between the bride and groom.

Our historic Moravian friends drew lots to match up the men and women (and given their disparity in number towards the former, it was quite a lottery). It may seem an eccentricity to us today, but it put them squarely back under divine will. They seemed to know that the essence of the church was to allow them to stay separate and holy, so they are not drawn back under the law. Today’s Amish and Mennonites appear to achieve those ends on a sustainable basis, for instance with vaccine mandates. America’s churches are its stability and its vulnerability at the same time. The spiritual war will be waged there, giving prospect to a refounding over a reformation.

Creekside life at the Tennessee/Alabama border