One of the most strange, yet wonderful works of God occurs when He brings a culture to epistemological self-consciousness. Cultures and civilisations develop to the stage where evil is unmasked and their latent demonic inspiration becomes overtly displayed.
Christians, through their knowledge of the Scriptures and the Christian faith, often see these things well in advance. They know there is a logic in Unbelief. They know that all Unbelieving cultures have a lust for power. They know that tyranny lurks just below the surface of all Unbelieving political and social systems.
For a time, a culture can coast along on gratuitous assumptions about being grounded in "common sense" or the "wisdom of the Founding Fathers" or "right reason". Concepts like justice, rights, morality, the rule of law, and freedom are believed to be self-evident, forever beyond dispute, except to fools and horses. "Common law" or the "Anglo-Saxon legal tradition" or "Western civilisation" seem like unassailable bulwarks against the void. Yet these remain nothing more than empty notions without foundation or any grounding in ultimate principles. Cultures not grounded in the law of God, the Creator of all things, are built upon shifting sand. When peoples appeal to cultural or historical traditions for what they regard as self-evident it is a sure sign they are not epistemologically self-conscious. They are sleep-walking.
One of the clearest portents of growing epistemological self-awareness occurs when blatant evil begins to be trumpeted as good.
When the ancient Jewish people executed the Son of God for the good of the nation, it was clear it was all over. When Rome celebrated the glories of wild beasts tearing people apart in the arenas as a wondrous entertainment and a signal demonstration of the power and glory of the Imperium, it was clear the end was nigh. Ordinary Romans became disgusted at themselves and their culture and what it had become. Evil had shown its hand. Satan was unmasking himself. At such times, more and more Unbelievers become epistemologically self-conscious and they find their own beliefs disgusting. They finally comprehend where their Unbelief has led.
We seem to be entering this stage in the West. Here is an example of what we speaking about: the UN has been ramping up their promotion of abortion. To do this, it has commenced arguing that those who oppose abortion are actually torturing children, abusing children, and so forth. It is calling evil, good and good, evil.
According to some United Nations experts, opposing abortion would be a kind of torture, it would also be a violation of children’s rights. . . . Those accusations against the moral opposition to abortion is the last move of a long term strategy to impose on States, through International law and agencies, a “human right to abortion”, and making opposition to abortion a crime. The abortion lobbies are currently very active as they want access to abortion to be included in the “post-2015 development agenda”, under the pretext of improving maternal health worldwide. This post-2015 agenda, under negotiation at the UN, will determine the priority development goals for decades to come. It will be supported by billions of dollars, and governments will have to implement it. Therefore, the issue at stake is huge. [Emphasis, ours]To recap: the one who kills the unborn child is a righteous man. The critic of such acts is cast as the murderer, the criminal, the immoral degenerate.
. . . . The ultimate goal of the abortion strategy is to win on the field of values: making pro-life immoral and pro-abortion moral, and to silence pro-life advocacy. This would be a complete inversion of values: indeed, in reality, abortion is torture and causes maternal mortality. Abortion, whether legal or not, not only kills a human being but also carries serious physical and psychological health risks and contributes to maternal mortality.
The more evil casts itself as morally good, the more it is unmasked. Ordinary, epistemologically un-self-conscious people become deeply disturbed, finding such monstrosities repellent. The more evil unmasks, the more "ordinary" people long to return to their Creator, and seek for the Father of Lights, the Giver of every perfect and good gift.
When Satan unmasks himself it is not a pretty sight. Reformations and revivals begin at such times.
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