christianity

Subduing Evil and Walking Vulnerable In His Light

/ JSB / 2 Comments

In an hour of intensifying pretense, darkness and deceit, living and loving with vulnerability in His light is a radical act of prophetic faith.

No one needs to tell us that we’re living through an age when pretense, deceit, and darkness is intensifying all around us. Every day we are surrounded by “competing narratives” (whether they come from social media, news outlets, or face to face interaction with others) – statistics, anecdotes, rhetoric and storylines that bid to win our trust, and our loyalty to silos of thought, faith, political and cultural ideology. A man could claim there is no such thing as gravity and win a great crowd in our world, today* – provided the one making the assertion could convince the insecure, and fickle masses that they could keep themselves from the evil threat in their world by believing something that was so obviously upside-down to common experience.

Our world is filled with people – we often call “leaders” – who are ready to make this claim about any subset of reality they care to comment upon:

“Masks are bad.”

“Killing your baby in your womb is healthy.”

“Feeling contrition about racism and bigotry is nefarious.”

“Threatening to annex another nation/state is good.”

“Empathy is evil.”

“50 year old men having sex with 14 year old girls is normal.”

“Telling a 50 yr old man he can’t be a 30-yr old woman is oppressive.”

“Not being accountable for one’s abuse is fine.”

“Helping others identify idolatry in our culture is divisive.”

“Spending too much time in prayer is dysfunctional.”

There is no end to the type of pronouncements about life in a fallen world that vie for our allegiance – ALL for the purpose of bringing more security and contentment into our short, little lives. And we humans devour these pronouncements, like starving dogs. Reading news reports; doing 15 minutes of “deep dive” google-searches; padding our world-view; building our towers of mutual strength; while assailing the towers of those who threaten our towers.

This was the world that Jesus came into. Humanity then was no different than us. The Romans and the Jews were both seeking security and deliverance from insecurity. They both sought a truth that promised them stability in a world filled with destabilizing enemies.

The Romans largely sought to achieve it through order and military enforcement of their order. The Jews looked for a deliverer from Roman order. And without a deliverer on the horizon, the Jews fashioned religious principles that allowed them to justify murder and insurrection. Both wanted security. Both legitimized the destruction of others in order to obtain it.

By the time we get to Luke 11, Jesus has done a lot of things to win the attention of the crowd. They’ve seen that He can do stuff that others can’t. He can provide lunch for everyone, and He can clear out their sick wards. He LOOKS LIKE someone we can trust to make our lives more secure. And so Jesus finds many being attracted to Himself. The crowds are learning to trust Jesus. But Jesus (rightly) doesn’t trust the crowds.

It was to the crowd that was building around Him that Jesus spoke these words in Luke 11:34-36.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is (actually) not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.” (Luke 11:34-36)

Huh?

“I came with a touch of arthritis, and seconds on lunch. Why is Jesus talking about my eyes? How can my ‘body be filled with darkness’? What?? Do a miracle, and change the circumstances in our world Jesus of Nazareth!”

Fortunately for them, and for us, Jesus wasn’t swayed by the demanding needs of the crowds. He knew that what was in the heart of all humanity was what needed changing. The world was evil – submerged in darkness – and under the reign of darkness – that was the perpetual order of the age the crowd lived in.

The hope that Jesus was wanting to instill in them wasn’t one that changed the world’s baseline order. It would remain “evil” until He came and deposed its evil ruler. The hope that Jesus was offering to Jew and Roman alike was the promise of freedom from interior insecurity – a security that everyone could have, regardless of their world-condition – a security that came with Him as the chief, and sole Determiner of truth, reality, and salvation.

But here’s the catch. Here was the stumbling block for those who pursued Jesus’ promises. The REAL PROBLEM, and the REAL THREAT wasn’t out there in the world – amidst some exterior consuming force. The REAL PROBLEM was inside us. Me. You. Our families. Our heroes of the faith. Our mentors. Our leaders. Us.

Until we were ready to acknowledge that the greatest destabilizing threat to our well-being was what was surging inside of our own souls – every breath of every day – we were not ready to receive the level of radical leadership that Jesus came to kindle. His Kingdom was one that took root in the nuclear-core of the soul, and then worked its way out with integrity, in every other place the soul went.

Furthermore, in order for the soul to garner this type of authentic, “sufficient for the world”, strength, it needed to acknowledge that it was innately corrupt; broken; deficient; bent on evil; and bent by evil. It needed to agree with Jesus about how wicked and dysfunctional it was. It needed to let Jesus’ Light, illuminate itself to its true condition.

And then, (as if that was not enough) it needed to learn to let Jesus CONTINUE to bring His Light to bear on the inner workings of the individual soul. ONLY THEN would Jesus’ Leadership have sway and gravity within the person – and by extension – in the world.

The devil wants us to believe the evil is out there – threatening our right to have stability, and contentment. Jesus quietly tells those who have ears to hear; those who are weaning their convictions from the thousand narratives in the atmosphere of the evil one; that the real threat, the peril that He’s come to deliver us from; is the evil that colors everyone of our souls.

In a world that’s incessantly pointing at others, who wants to be “that fool” who is gazing into their own soul? Who would believe that the Kingdom of goodness, justice, kindness, faithfulness, love, and beauty could eventually make so many consequential changes in the whole world, while being so intimately administrated within our own hearts?

Jesus.

It takes faith to walk in the thorough way of Jesus. And it takes vulnerability to walk in faith; believing Jesus, and turning down the noise about the looming dangers encircling us.

Don’t believe the hype of those who use Jesus’ Name to fix everything else OUT THERE. That’s living with the light that Jesus calls “actually, darkness”.

Walk in the quiet Light of His Voice that offends you with the truth about what needs “fixing” inside of your self.

This is the essence of all prophetic truth.

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JSB • February 24, 2026

Apotheosis

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We need to understand the psychological phenomenon that’s infected our culture right now. From our congressional halls, to our church gatherings, millions in our nation are being swallowed up in what social-psychologists call, “the cult of personality”. And it was on full, text-book display during Pam Bondi’s (February 11, 2026) hearings with the House Judiciary Committee. [C-SPAN] 

Instead of answering specific questions about justice issues at hand (what a United States Attorney General does for a living), Bondi repeatedly (on five separate occasions) launched into what Max Weber (1864-1920) called “APOTHEOSIS” – the technical term for the exaggerated, unquestioning adulation, and extreme idealization of a leader that involves the use of propaganda, conspiracy, legend-telling, vilification of detractors and persecution complex to portray a leader as heroic, infallible, and worthy of manifest worship.

After a year back in the White House, Mr. Trump’s efforts to promote himself as the singularly dominant figure in the world have become so commonplace that they no longer seem surprising. He regularly depicts himself in a heroic, almost godly fashion, as a monarch, as a Superman, as a Jedi knight, as a military hero, even as a pope in a white cassock.

While Mr. Trump has spent a lifetime promoting his personal brand, slapping his name on hotels, casinos, airplanes, even steaks, neckties and bottled water, what he is doing in his second term as president comes closer to building a cult of personality the likes of which has never been seen in American history. Other presidents sought to cultivate their reputations, but none went as far as Mr. Trump has to create a mythologized, superhuman and omnipresent persona leading to idolatry.

Cabinet meetings have become long, huddle-sessions in which individual department secretaries seek to outdo each other in heaping fawning, over-the-top praise upon the President.

His picture has been splashed all over the White House, on multistory banners on the side of federal buildings, on annual passes to national parks and maybe even soon on a one-dollar coin. His name has been etched on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, on the U.S. Institute of Peace, on federal investment accounts, special visas and a discount drug programand, if he has his way, on Washington Dulles International Airport, Penn Station in New York and the future stadium of the Washington Commanders.

His White House is pressuring the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery to display portraits of Mr. Trump by his supporters. A group of cryptocurrency investors has shelled out $300,000 to forge a 15-foot-tall gold-covered bronze statue of Mr. Trump called “Don Colossus” to be installed at his golf complex in Doral, Fla.

His administration is considering designating a new class of battleships in Mr. Trump’s name. His allies are pressuring foreign leaders to endorse his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize and threatening consequences for resisting. Some supporters in Congress have even proposed adding his face to Mount Rushmore, an effort that, for the moment, has gained little traction.

What distinguishes APOTHEOSIS from normal popularity is 
A. the “demand for verbal adulation”, (the effusive glorification we heard from Bondi yesterday) 
B. unquestioned, final control over the narrative, and 
C. a “circle-the-wagons” defense of the leader himself, (what we see in Dutch Sheets’ appeal below) 
…all of which flows from the living leader him/herself.

The slavish following that surrounds Trump is about more than mere vanity. “This is not just egotistical self-satisfaction, it’s a way of expanding presidential power,” say Harvard scholar, and presidential historian, Michael Beschloss.

APOTHEOSIS is often fostered by totalitarian regimes (like Stalin, Mao, Sadaam Hussein, and smaller communities like Charles Manson and Jim Jones) to ascend to greater degrees of unrestricted power.

Indeed, last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump suggested that authoritarianism was not necessarily something to eschew. “Usually they say, ‘He’s a horrible dictator-type person, I’m a dictator,’” he said openly. “But sometimes, you need a dictator.”

APOTHEOSIS is sometimes also described as “abdication syndrome”, where followers surrender their critical thinking to a parental figure, who becomes the “savior” for the population in question, providing their subjects with the narratives that tell them how to understand, and operate within their society. 

Benjamin E. Goldsmith of the Australian National University and Lars J.K. Moen of the University of Vienna, who have studied Mr. Trump’s hold on his supporters, and published a paper on the abnormality in the Political Psychology journal, said the personality cult allowed Mr. Trump to dominate Republican primary contests, right-wing media and his party’s majorities in Congress. Those who stand against Mr. Trump are deemed traitors and punished accordingly.

“For us, this is the major threat to U.S. democracy from Trump’s cult-like following,” they wrote. “Congress is transformed into an enabler, even when the executive makes disastrous policies, undermines the rule of law or might attempt to fix elections. The system can transform into an electoral autocracy.”

Apotheosis binds followers of a movement to their leader more than to any particular policy prescription, making his success or failure their own. Veneration and loyalty are central and ideology secondary. The leader is presented as infallible, uniquely qualified, even divinely delivered for this moment in history.

Mr. Trump has played to these themes since taking the national political stage. “I alone can fix it,” he declared when running in 2016. “I myself am peace. Believe it.” he trumpeted weeks days before the 2024 election. “I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said on being inaugurated again last year.

From a Christian standpoint, what we are witnessing is a significant part of the power of a “strong delusion” (2 Thessalonians 2:11) overtaking the critical analysis, and Berean thinking of a people-group. This is a supernatural distortion of reality that the Lord Himself will give to those who take increasing pleasure in unrighteousness. (v.12)

THE antiChrist will demand APOTHEOSIS – AND be more cunning and serpentine in his constraint for it, than any figure ever.

“And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.” (Revelation 13:14-15)

Whether you believe Trump is an antiChrist, or not, here’s the point: the same spirit that is demanding his defensive veneration today is the same spirit that will be demanding the veneration of the beast in fulfillment of Revelation 13 in the days ahead. If our American evangelical family can’t withstand the smaller temptation today, how do we expect to be able to stand the vastly greater pressure later?

In the Words of the prophet Jeremiah: “If you have run with the footmen and they have wearied you, then how will you contend with horses?” (Jeremiah 12:5)

But here’s the kicker. The “greater pressure” will not only come from the power of the beast himself. It will come from our own sisters and brothers, all around us, who shape the social mind-set that insists that there is only one acceptable way of viewing the individuals, circumstances and dynamics within the culture. Social psychologists call this corporeality, “group-think”.

Group-think occurs within a collection of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. The desire for cohesiveness, within a group produces an inclination among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the community to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision at the expense of critical (ala. Berean) evaluation.

Group-think requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions. Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the “outgroup”. Members of a group can often feel under peer pressure to “go along with the crowd” for fear of “rocking the boat” or of how their speaking out will be perceived by the rest of the group. Group interactions tend to favor clear and harmonious agreements and it can be a cause for concern when little to no exterior arguments for better beliefs, outcomes and structures are called to question. Groupthink can often lead to the creation of “yes men”, because group activities and group projects in general make it extremely easy to pass on not offering constructive opinions, and potentially more fruitful options.

Psychologist Irving Janis (Yale University) pioneered the initial research on the group-think theory. He writes: “I use the term group-think as a quick and easy way to refer to the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. Group-think is a term of the same order as the words in the newspeak vocabulary George Orwell used in his dismaying world of 1984. In that context, group-think takes on an invidious connotation. Exactly such a connotation is intended, since the term refers to a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures… The main principle of group-think is this: ‘The more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making in-group, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by group-think, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against out-groups‘.”

Jeremiah writes to strengthen the people against these insidious, and potentially ruinous interpersonal forces: “For even your brothers, the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; yes, they have called a multitude after you. Do not believe them, even though they speak smooth words to you.” (Jeremiah 12:7)

This is the vital question before the church in this hour. Does our American evangelical family have the discipline, and prophetic fortitude that will enable us to escape the vortex of APOTHEOSIS that has engulfed SO MUCH of our Church family throughout history?

In the rest of chapter 12’s message, Jeremiah references the fierce jealousy of God to produce a people who are not ravaged by the destructive, and despotic ways of satan’s tyranny: “Many rulers have destroyed My vineyard, they have trodden My portion underfoot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate; desolate, it mourns to Me; the whole land is made desolate, because no one takes it to heart. The plunderers have come on all the desolate heights in the wilderness, for the sword of the Lord shall devour from one end of the land to the other end of the land; no flesh shall have peace.” (Jeremiah 12:10-12)

Beloved. The zeal of the Lord stands in wholehearted opposition to the devouring desolation that always comes with self-adulating power. Ultimately, should we not take His prophetic counsel to heart, and see His Hand in what is arrayed against us (indeed, on behalf of our good), we will find our God in violent opposition to us. People of the Word need not be deceived about this reality.

Today is the day to avail ourselves of the full, circumspect counsel of our King. Today is the day to humble ourselves and take refuge in the watchful, inner-vigilance of prayer, and yield our flesh to the crucifying work of the Spirit, that we may develop an idol-intolerant heart, and a pure devotion to the exaltation of Jesus alone.

“O Lord, our God, masters other than You have ruled us, but we praise Your Name alone.” (Isaiah 26:13)

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JSB • February, 2026

NOTE: If you’re curious: Here’s a very accessible, thorough, non-political article that helps break down the human components of cult-dynamics, (including apotheosis) so that they become more easily identifiable in our every-day world.

DEFANGING AUTHORITARIANISM by Daniel D. Barber (June 8, 2023)

Enemies of the Cross

/ JSB / 4 Comments

It’s 2026, and most Bible-believing followers of Christ honestly neither see what’s at risk inside ourselves, nor within our household. We have little perspective on what it is that the devil is attempting to wrest from our lives. And, in most cases, we give it up willingly, without even understanding what it is that we’re surrendering. The troubling truth is, without it, we (ourselves and the Bride) will never enter into the nobility of our destiny. What we’re blindly relinquishing is that precious.

Right now, the age-old deceiver is using thousands of voices (politicians, pundits, pastors, and prophets) in a full-press quest to divest the church of her cross.

These are the false christs, false teachers, and false prophets that Jesus warned us about. They have no value for walking in the manner that Jesus walked. Neither do they have a game plan for the Bride to come forth in glorious Christlikeness. They are literally hell-bent on agitating the faithful to lay down their cross, take up the power of the exalted flesh, and follow the spirit of anti-christ – no love; no Holy Spirit fruit; no humility; no death to self…

Millions around us, in our churches, our prayer gatherings, our home fellowships and our seminars are succumbing to the temptation, and enthusiastically handing the enemy of our souls, the very nexus of our covenant in Christ, and the one essential means by which we may bear the fruits of righteousness – our cross.

It is nothing short of the “falling away” from vibrant faith in Jesus Christ.

Chief among these incendiary voices are those who crusade to turn our nation back to God. Burning with an eternal flame of enmity, they intend to accomplish the feat by fiat. Their banner is a sword. Their mouths never tire of the propaganda. And, in spite of their desire to be known as “peacemakers”, their festivals are filled with the drums of war.

There is no humility in their spirits. No mutual confession that escapes their lips. No call to repentance that touches their own houses of ill-repute. Their’s is a perpetual campaign to destroy the “other”, in pursuit of an earthly utopia for the “unwoke”. Not a community of the redeemed – a society of the justified, the mutually adoring, and the worthy.

In 1930’s nationalist Germany, the new, spiring socio-political power within that nation sought a symbol to represent its vigor and devotion. The image it chose was one of a broken cross. Dietrich Bonhoeffer perceived what his sisters and brothers were being seduced by, and wrote about it in his landmark book, “The Cost of Discipleship”. Essentially, Bonhoeffer’s message was, if we take up the emblem of naziism, and champion a crossless “kamph”, we, and the world around us will only have cheap grace, and a pretentious kingdom built upon edict, hostility, intolerance, platitudes, and the unrestrained appetites of the right-minded flesh.

The vast majority of German Christians did not heed Bonhoeffer’s cry to count the internal cost of remaining faithful to Christ. Instead, in their lust to become the master race of humanity, they exacted that cost from the lives of 50 million of their fellow human beings who opposed their “jihad”.

Such is the universal way of the antiChrist: glory without the agency of the cross.

When tempted in the desert, the true Christ, turned down the offer to receive the nations from the hands of the devil, who was offering it to Him without the messy need for a cross. Jesus had already determined to follow the plan of the Father, that would deliver both the rule and the redemption of the nations into His Hands via the way of the cross.

And when we see national prayer assemblies filled with self-vaunted rancor, and the honor of killing others for the glories of supremacy being esteemed as the pathway to eternal salvation, we know the devil has come to our doorstep as well.

Friends. Family in Christ. American evangelicalism is at a watershed moment. The crafty rhetoric of the deceiver is not only echoing from the White House, its found a foothold in the pulpits of our churches. We MUST attune our spiritual ears to the pride, the lust and the selfism, and hear his serpentine beguilement.

By his siren song, our apostolic virginity is being raped. The Name of our King is being coopted. Our witness is being bastardized. The fame of our God is being defaced. And unless we wake up from our intoxications, we are going to rush ourselves, our families, and many in our nation toward an everlasting fire that was only prepared for the devil and his angels.

We need the pure holiness of the Lord within our own bosom, twitching at every promise of greatness through self-promotion. Evil isn’t (only) coming with horns, dressed in drag. It’s coming wrapped in red, white and blue sentiment, and the magical touch of Meidas.

We MUST, in all our praying, speaking, meditating, studying, gathering, and debating cry out to the Spirit to bring us into the way of our cross! Should we not, we WILL exact the same price upon all others who oppose us in our gilded zeal.

“For many live, about whom I have often told you, and now, with tears, I tell you that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they set their aspirations on earthly things.” (Philippians 3:18-19)

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JSB • February, 2026

  • * At the February 5, 2026 Prayer Breakfast, Secretary Pete Hegseth made the following incredible statement to the assembled guests; pastors, evangelists, intercessors, government officials etc.:
    “The willingness to make sacrifices on behalf of one’s country is born in one thing: a deep and abiding belief in God’s love for us and his promise of eternal life. The scripture says, ‘For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.’ The warrior who is willing to lay down his life for his unit, his country, and his Creator, that warrior finds eternal life.” (Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War • February 5, 2026)
    …and no one rose to object.

    The idol is now on full display. The trumpets are bidding the “faithful” to bow. The sheep are being divided from the goats – real time.

    Christian leader. In this hour, if you’re not making the way clear, you’re playing the role of Aaron. You’re an impediment to Jesus’ exhortation to His disciples. We are watching nothing less than the usurping of American evangelicalism by the spirit of antiChrist. Period.

    After his curse-filled rant, (…at the NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST!) Trump announced that in a May 17 festival, he intends to declare the United States a Christian nation. Tragically, this assembly will be hailed by millions of our sisters and brothers, as a monumental step in the ascendency of the Kingdom of God. In truth, it promises to be the greatest desolating abomination our culture has ever witnessed – satan himself serving as the master of ceremonies where he will bestow glory upon a people who exalt self, and repudiate the need for a cross.

See this same article at my SUBSTACK Page.

Finding the Transcendent Way of Jesus

/ JSB / 2 Comments

FINDING THE TRANSCENDENT WAY OF JESUS
Beloved family. Stay true to the gospel of the Kingdom! Stay true to our King! Stay true to the cross!

Right now, heaven is searching for transcendent and unadulterated voices that will speak the truth of God to both the lost in the world, and the deluded in the Church.

It’s instructive to recognize that the voice of Christ – and the way of God – is almost never a singular, polarized antithesis to the way of godlessness. It is nearly always also a bur under the saddle of carnal, religious idolatry. History is packed with relevant examples:

A. In Exodus, there was the way of the Egyptians, the way of the Children of Israel, and then the way of God through Moses and Joshua. YHWH opposed the religious/idolatrous way of the Children of Israel (Exodus 32) as resoundingly as He did the paganism of the people of Egypt.

B. In Joshua 5, the Captain of the Lord’s armies declared He was not for the descendants of the Children of Israel, nor for the people of Jericho. He was looking for those who would “be on the Lord’s side”. It was a transcendent moment that moved Joshua (the man who would not leave the tent of meeting in Exodus 33) so profoundly that he fell at the feet of the Captain in holy worship.

C. In Daniel 3, there was the way of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, there was the way of the faithless children of Judah, and then there was the transcendent way of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, who would not bow to the kingdom image that all the rest of the Babylonians, including captive Judah were bowing to.

D. In Jesus’ day, there was the way of the pagan Romans, and then the way of the Pharisees, and the crippled people of Judea. Jesus walked in a transcendent way above the rampant false gods of the Hellenistic world, and the false, religious zealotry of the Jews – calling all to repentance.

“Now after John was taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)

E. Across the ages, kingdoms have risen in opposition to oppressive religion (ie. the Russian revolution, the populist movement in South Africa etc.), and kingdoms have risen up against virulent godlessness (the crusades, and many of the South American regime changes in the 60’s, and 70’s). In the VAST MAJORITY OF THE CASES the kingdoms that have risen against the ruling political power were NOT the way of Christ. (The Marxists weren’t the way of Christ replacing the religious elite in Russia. Pinochet wasn’t bringing the Kingdom of heaven to Chile. And Mandela wasn’t bringing the way of Christ to the people of South Africa.) There remained a transcendent way above, wedged and salted into the kingdoms that were in polar apposition to each other.

F. In the 1930’s, the Nazi’s rose to power promising to inoculate Germany from the godless ideology of communism that was sweeping the nations in eastern Europe. No one today believes Naziism was the way of Jesus. Nor would any Bible believer assert that the way of Stalin and Lenin were the government of heaven on earth. Faithful disciples of Jesus, the “ELECT” if you will, were borne and forged within the midst of the “trouble” (thlipsis – “tribulation”) of the intense cultural pressures that existed between these polarized ideologies. And so you had the Corey and Betsy TenBooms living for Jesus in spite of the Nazi opposition, and you had the Ivan (Vanya) Moiseyevs, living faithfully for Jesus under the thumb of communist Russia. BOTH LIVED FAITHFULLY FOR JESUS even though their secular cultural ideologies fought wars against the other…

It’s not so difficult to see the parallel today in America. There’s been a decades-long thrust of godless humanism that’s become virulent and oppressive throughout our culture, and now a strident, authoritarian nationalism that has taken aim at the evils of “the left”, and “the woke”. We dare (and it is a risk) to learn the long lesson of history – especially our own “people of God” history and realize that the Lord is most always NOT on one side or the other of these warring, political factions. His way is transcendent. His way is pure. His way is nailed to a cross to the glory of the One Who will one day rule ALL the nations.

Friends. Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Daniel, the John the Baptist, the disciples, Augustine, Luther, Wesley, and Bonhoeffer, all found the transcendent way of the “ELECT” of God. And it behooves the American Church to find it in our tumultuous hour as well.

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JSB • September, 2025

Race and Revival

/ JSB / 1 Comment

RACE and REVIVAL 

The Moravians stood shoulder to shoulder with native Americans during America’s first great awakening.

Evangelists and abolitionists marked the second great awakening.

Azusa, was led by a one-eyed black man, and embraced nearly every ethnicity on earth.

Like the very first “revival” recorded in Acts 2, all the great nation-wide revivals in America also ushered in grand, societal-shifts toward heaven’s value for race. 

The last bonafide, national revival we had was the Jesus People Movement of the late 60’s and 70’s. One of the reasons it was so pervasive was because it participated in the national humbling of the general populace re: our nation’s long history of racial sin, while casting a broad vision for the multiethnic culture America was becoming. The Spirit of the Lord touched all aspects of our society as a result.

Race was one of the chief issues that Jesus confronted through all four of the gospels. It was a perpetual component of the Acts of the apostles. It was an issue that was repeatedly addressed in the epistles. And it is a sparkling facet of the beauty of redeemed humanity in the book of Revelation.

To be racially tender (even toward Haitians, Afghanis, Central Americans, Canadians, Greenlanders, and Mexicans) is to make room for His Kingdom, even at the expense of our own kingdoms. To love with humility and empathy across convivial norms, and divisions is part of the warp and woof of what it means to be a New Testament Christian. It is to be like Jesus.

At the same time, the way of the devil is to ply self-justification, insensitivity, and a “look out for my own” mentality into communities. It is the way of antipathy, and the anti-cross. It plays on fear, rather than excelling at love. It is the anti-1Corinthians13 way. Neither does it value making oneself poor, meek, mournful, hungry for justice, peaceful, pure, or merciful. The way of the devil diminishes the distinctively deep, and wonderful elements of ethnicity. It is a form of “trashing family” as sure as sexual perversion, divorce and abortion.

With this in mind, with the callous, defensive, insular spirit that’s currently in vogue with so many of our MAGA evangelical leaders, I don’t believe we are “making a way” for the increased Presence of the Lord, and a modern, nation-wide revival. To the contrary – much of the neo-nationalist rhetoric seeks to shift our collective attitude in ways that grieve and militate against the Lord of the nations.

Racial celebration remains one of the most cherished elements marking great surges in Kingdom expansion. And right now, our ways are stained with indifference, unrepentance, and lack of compassion toward our neighbors’ racial wounds and inequities.

O, Father of glory! Give us a considerate, and contrite heart for Your magnificent design for race.

_____________________
JSB • June, 2025

Waking Up to Jesus

/ JSB / 1 Comment

In 1983 Leonard Ravenhill wrote: “There’s going to come an awakening. God Almighty doesn’t care if He sends America bankrupt. He doesn’t care if we have to stand in bread lines. He doesn’t care if our automobiles rust because we have no gasoline… The greatest impediment to this (awakening) will be a Church who refuses to give themselves to prayer and repentance.”

Awakening is a God thing. In our carnal, disengaged state we believers will sleep (and sleep and sleep…) It requires a supernatural response to the Word of the Lord for a soul to be awakened and remain awakened in Christ.

Awakening is also a Church thing. The world can’t wake up. Only those alive in Christ can wake up. The world is dead in their sins and trespasses. The New Testament call to wake up is to the covenant people of God who have had their souls dulled and weighed down by the paradigms, narratives and thinking of the flesh; thoughts that don’t stimulate faith, first-commandment love and the fear of the Lord in our hearts. This happens naturally in a fallen world, and at different times happens to all of us.

Waking up for a believer entails the same response to the Lord as being raised from the dead does for the unbeliever.

• Being Stirred by the Word of the Lord

• Responding with Repentance

• Being Filled with the Spirit

• Taking Up Our Cross

As the Church is awakened, she finds her Spirit-empowered voice:

A. The intercessory voice we use to bring the lost before the throne of God’s grace in prayer.

B. The prophetic voice that arrests the slumbering and those endangered by the crossless spirit of this age.

C. The evangelistic voice that makes clear the powerful message of the gospel, and has the power to raise the dead.

The fact of the matter is, these “voices” all have as their singular, magnificent obsession, a Man; a crucified, resurrected, Jewish God/Man. The declaration and acclamation of this beautiful Man is the ruling passion and preoccupation of awakened voices. EVERY TIME! EVERYTHING ELSE is a shadow, and an expendable extra to the increase of His glory.

Here’s the trick: (And in today’s politically supercharged culture it IS a trick) Don’t let someone (no matter how prominent and/or popular) wake you up to a SHADOW rather than THE ONE WHO is casting the shadow. Our waking up is to HIM – and nothing else; not political power; not deep spiritual insight; not even justice for the poor.

The Holy Spirit is wholly invested in waking us up to HIM. The Bride belongs to the Bridegroom. He’s the One (and the only One) you want to wake up to. There’s more than enough of Him to wake up to to keep us engaged and enthralled – for eternity.

The truth of the matter is, none of us are as “awakened” as we can be. In Christ, there’s always more to be awakened to. He’s that big.

The book of Revelation shows us how the mature apostle John was “awakened” to a new dimension of awe and fear and love for His “friend”, Jesus. Although John had watched Him heal the sick, feed thousands and refute the wisest teachers of his day; although John himself performed miracles in Jesus’ Name; although John was an eye-witness to His crucifixion – felt the earth-quake under his feet – and even walked into his Friend’s empty grave; when Revelation 1 happened to him John still fell “as though dead” at His feet.

There’s no shame in waking up to more of Jesus. Ever. The only shame is for us to assume that we are fully awake to Him and Who He is.

Come. Let’s let the Holy Spirit awaken us, all the more, to the glory of Who He is.

11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. 12 The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let’s rid ourselves of the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let’s behave properly as in the day… 14 (Let’s) put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 13:11-12,13,14)

JSB • May 2, 2022

POST-SCRIPT
Living revelation of the beauty of Jesus is THE vital (Matthew 25:3) oil our hearts need in this age. More than a call to believe the right theological truths about Jesus, this is a call to a lifestyle that cultivates an adoring, faithful heart, that’s been awakened to His beauty.

Without being saturated with revelations of the truth and majesty of Jesus, our hearts will be vulnerable to…

the compromising lies of demons,

the rage of humanism,

hostile self-determination,

self-insulating pride,

phobic suspicion,

idolatrous worship,

shame-filled pretense,

and incessant (hellish) condemnation.

These are the true, toxic threats to our culture; dynamics that plague every human heart; liberal, conservative, apolitical, monk, wealthy and poor…

And there’s only one solution: the daily application of the revelation of the Person of Jesus that engenders first-commandment love, and self-crucifying fidelity.

Not a better argument, a more popular opinion, or a more detached and objective spirit…

ONLY life-activated exhilaration over the magnificence of Jesus will keep our hearts alive and loyal to Him through this turbulent hour.

It’s Time for An American Church “Barman Declaration”

/ JSB / 1 Comment

What is the nature of the nationalist fervor which has fallen upon our nation?
How do its tenets pollute the ethos of the ekklesia, and the pure proclamation of the gospel?
How does the nationalist fervor influence the body of Christ to walk out of step with the Spirit and ways of our Lord, Jesus Christ?
What are the real, and pragmatic faith issues that are at risk, because of this fervor?
What evangelical declarations need to be reenforced within the Church in this hour?

These were questions that stirred within Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and other pastors and theologians, who were watching a menacing political spirit overtake the people of God in 1930’s Germany.

In 1936, when Bonhoeffer did most of the writing of his book, “The Cost of Discipleship“, the Nazi rallies in Nuremberg were at their height of popularity. These rallies would run for a week, and include marches of various segments of the nation (ie. Labor workers, women and mothers, youth, religious etc.) who would participate in elaborate, festive parades that would snake through surrounding villages – all culminating in the large amphitheater in Nuremberg.

The Rally included speeches on the topics of The Power of the German Workforce, the Bolshevism in Theory and Practice, Homeland Security, The Youth Movement, The Task of the Judiciary, The Task of the German Press/Newspapers, The Financial Health of the German Government

On the seventh day of the rally, “the Fuerher” would address sometimes upward of 700,000 attendees.

“I see before me endless columns of the flags of our new Reich. I make this prophecy to you: This Reich will grow in the coming centuries, becoming strong and powerful! These flags will be borne by ever new generations of our people. Germany is healthy once more! Our people is reborn! I greet you as the hope of the present and the guarantee of our future. Fight! and Be upright and determined, fear no one and do your duty! If you do so, the Lord God will never leave our people. Heil Germany!” Adolph Hitler • September 14, 1936

The following Sunday, hundreds of thousands of these same people would go to church. (In 1936, 95% of the German population identified as Christian – 65% Protestant, and 30% Catholic.)

The pro-Nazi “German Christian” movement became a force in the church in 1933, primarily preaching that Bolshevism was using race as a way to pollute and divide the German people. The majority of Protestant churches, Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist fell in league with the Nazi Party by 1936, forming the “Protestant Reich Church”, and glorified Adolf Hitler as a “German prophet”.

Early on, some Catholic bishops prohibited Catholics in their dioceses from joining the Nazi Party. This ban was dropped after Hitler’s March 23, 1933, speech to the Reichstag in which he described Christianity as “the foundation for German values”.

The Reich Ministry of Church Affairs was established in July of 1936, creating for the first time in Germany an independent, centralized government ministry with responsibility for the Reich’s religious life.

The German Churches and the Nazi State https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state

Two years earlier, (1934) Bonhoeffer, along with a handful of other leading Protestant theologians, seeing the growing contraChrist spirit overtaking much of the German Church, formed “The Confessing Church”, centered around “The Barman Confession” (originally titled, “Theological Declaration Concerning the Present Situation of the German Evangelical Church”)
http://postbarthian.com/2018/05/21/karl-barth-and-the-barmen-declaration-1934/

“The Barman Declaration” (chiefly written by the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth) contained six propositions, each rooted squarely in Scripture, stating its implications for the present day, and rejecting the false doctrine of Nationalism. The declaration asserted the church’s fidelity to Jesus Christ alone, Who stands as Lord in every sphere of life – and Who’s ways are to govern the manner of His Body’s witness within each of these spheres as well.

THE BARMAN DECLARATION
In view of the errors of the “German Christians” and of the present Reich Church Administration, which are ravaging the Church and at the same time also shattering the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths:

1. “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved.” John 10:1,9

Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation.

2. “Jesus Christ has been made wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption for us by God.” 1 Corinthians 1:30

As Jesus Christ is God’s comforting pronouncement of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, with equal seriousness, he is also God’s vigorous announcement of his claim upon our whole life. Through him there comes to us joyful liberation from the godless ties of this world for free, grateful service to his creatures.

We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords, areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

3. “Let us, however, speak the truth in love, and in every respect grow into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined together.” Ephesians 4:15-16

The Christian Church is the community of brethren in which, in Word and Sacrament, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ acts in the present as Lord. With both its faith and its obedience, with both its message and its order, it has to testify in the midst of the sinful world, as the Church of pardoned sinners, that it belongs to him alone and lives and may live by his comfort and under his direction alone, in expectation of his appearing.

We reject the false doctrine that the Church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day.

4. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to have authority over you must be your servant.” Matthew 20:25-26

The various offices in the Church do not provide a basis for some to exercise authority over others but for the ministry [lit., “service”] with which the whole community has been entrusted and charged to be carried out.

We reject the false doctrine that, apart from this ministry, the Church could, and could have permission to, give itself or allow itself to be given special leaders [Führer] vested with ruling authority.

5. “Fear God. Honor the Emperor.” 1 Peter 2:17

Scripture tells us that by divine appointment the State, in this still unredeemed world in which also the Church is situated, has the task of maintaining justice and peace, so far as human discernment and human ability make this possible, by means of the threat and use of force. The Church acknowledges with gratitude and reverence toward God the benefit of this, his appointment. It draws attention to God’s Dominion [Reich], God’s commandment and justice, and with these the responsibility of those who rule and those who are ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word, by which God upholds all things.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfill the vocation of the Church as well.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.

6. “See, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matt. 28:20 “God’s Word is not fettered.” 2 Timothy 2:9

The Church’s commission, which is the foundation of its freedom, consists in this: in Christ’s stead, and so in the service of his own Word and work, to deliver all people, through preaching and sacrament, the message of the free grace of God.

We reject the false doctrine that with human vainglory the Church could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of self-chosen desires, purposes and plans.

The Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a confederation of Confessing Churches. It calls upon all who can stand in solidarity with its Declaration to be mindful of these theological findings in all their decisions concerning Church and State. It appeals to all concerned to return to unity in faith, hope and love.

Verbum Dei manet in aeternum.
(The Word of God endures forever.)

Is it time for the American Church to establish her own Barman Declaration? Is it past time?

What is the nature of the nationalist fervor which has fallen upon our nation?
How do its tenets pollute the ethos of the ekklesia, and the pure proclamation of the gospel?
How does the nationalist fervor influence the body of Christ to walk out of step with the Spirit and ways of our Lord, Jesus Christ?
What are the real, and pragmatic faith issues that are at risk, because of this fervor?
What evangelical declarations need to be reenforced within the Church in this hour?

____________________
JSB • March 22, 2025

Party Rally of Honor by Dr. Walther Schmitt http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/pt36int.htm

The 1936 Nazi Rally Order of Ceremony
https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/pt36.htm