Is it the Mark of the Beast? Actually no, but I'm still not
doing it. I'm not a Dispensationalist looking for a One World Government and a
Seven Year Tribulation but at the same time this sort of technology and the way
it's being used is certainly bestial.
As I've argued elsewhere the Mark is actually something far
more general, a designator of the lost versus the saved. It's related to the
idea of marking out territory and distinguishing those who are God's as opposed
to those who belong to the world, and thus to its god Satan. The same imagery
appears in Ezekiel and even Revelation 11. In chapter 13 of Revelation the same
point is being reiterated and I would argue represents a cyclical phenomenon
throughout Church History. The degree of application and intensity varies. I'm certainly
open to the notion of intensification and perhaps even an ultimate expression
of the phenomenon just before the Parousia. Things are going to get worse and
worse. That's the Biblical picture. Those that say otherwise have either
succumbed to an over-realised eschatology or a Judaized hermeneutic in which
they are reading the New Testament through Old Testament eyes.
The Mark is not something only relevant to a 'Tribulation' period
or something at the very end of days. It existed in the Middle Ages when
dissidents struggled to buy or sell or live above ground due to the persecution
they experienced. Today in Western culture the Mark still exists however it's
more subtle and the danger is less in terms of opposition and threat but rather
the peril appears in the most seductive of terms. Little compromises and the
embrace of attitudes lead to flourishing. Fidelity causes hardship and reduces
one to second class citizenship.
The refusal to bow to the state on this point will result in
a literal and in this case quite hindering second class status. It may be time
to leave and live somewhere else. I would do that now if I could afford it. It
may be at some future date I'm forced to relocate with little more than a bag
slung over my shoulders.
Do I have something to hide? Am I simply paranoid? In a
sense, yes I do have something to hide. The state can take my money, property
and goods but it has no right to invade my mind or heart. It cannot claim that
kind of obedience. I do not claim 'rights' but at the same time I refuse to
surrender all my actions and movements to the scrutiny of the state. I do not
break the laws of the land but it's reaching a point in which we will be forced
to. That's not a blank check that gives me carte
blanche to defy all laws. The only laws I would defy are directly related
to survival and the gospel. Sadly many Christians believe that point involves
guns and resistance. We're not revolutionaries. No, we're called to suffer or
flee. And before actual suffering there may be the angst and stress associated
with living as outlaws or in the underground. This has been the lot of many
Christians throughout history and so it shouldn't surprise us.
Of course in this computer age, the task is going to prove a
little more complicated. When the state demands a total surrender, when it has crossed
the bestial line and claims the prerogatives of the mandate of heaven as it
were, the signal has been given. Totalitarianism is coming and its claims and
obligations are idolatrous. Our resistance is not political. In fact we don't
resist. Again, we refuse and we'll go about our Kingdom business in defiance of
the state knowing that we may suffer penalty or eventually we may realise that
our usefulness has ended and it's time to leave. This was certainly the lot of
Christians in the Middle Ages when the totalitarian claims of the Papacy and
the false Churchly Babylon of Roman Catholic Christendom held sway.
Under the suggested scenario in the article we (who refuse) would
no longer be able to have passports and thus travel beyond national borders
becomes all but impossible. Hopefully by then some country will offer
citizenship that can be purchased on line. Who knows?
Am I doing something illegal? Not at present but I believe at
some point I will be in violation of the law and that may be sooner rather than
later. A faithful Christian witness always comes into conflict with any state
that is waxing bestial and our computer age is rapidly driving us to that point
in the West. I would also note a faithful Christian witness always comes into
conflict with the sacral state which is something all states embrace to varying
degrees. A mild secularism is best for us as Christians. A hard secularism
comes full circle and becomes religious once more. That said, some of the worst
persecution has been at the hands of the so-called Christian state. It was the
totalitarian system implemented by Rome that caused the death of untold
thousands throughout the medieval and even pre-modern periods. We tend to fear
the atheistic state and with some reason but in that case the line of
demarcation is pronounced and the Church (though suffering) flourishes
spiritually. I fear Christian totalitarianism which is what the Christian Right
would bring us. They claim otherwise but they're consistently and sometimes
willingly blind to the implications of their own ideology and the examples of
history. Besides being heretical, that scenario represents an even greater
spiritual danger for it will confuse Christians, feed apostasy and turn
Christians on one another. Their rage will be directed specifically toward
Christians like me who preach against what they're doing and do so on Biblical
terms. A Biblically minded and informed Christianity challenging the
hybrid-syncretist Sacral system presents an existential threat. Medieval Rome
hated the Muslims but they reserved a special wrath and vitriol for the
'heretic'.
Knowing what's coming, I refuse to surrender such data to the
state. These are people drunk on power, people out of control. I realise they
have no regard for law or precedent and that really doesn't matter or detract
from their legitimacy. That said I will not weep if this order collapses, if
others rise up and cast it down. They are marching society right into a dystopia.
Blind, clueless and divorced from the lessons of history they will foment chaos
and evil and it will lead to fragmentation. And once that starts there's no
telling what direction things will go.
All that said, the implicit claims in taking biometric data
are bestial and thus it is right and proper for a Christian to refuse. Again,
not resist but refuse. I'm not filing lawsuits or claiming rights. We pray and
hope that the regime will collapse on itself or in Providence that it is cast
down by some other aspirant beast who for the moment is restrained. It's in
God's hands but I will not feed and empower the beast. That ranges far beyond
submission. That's a surrender, an utter subjugation, a form of obedience that
is tantamount to an acknowledgement of the state's divinity and thus it is a
form of apostasy. I don't believe the New Testament teaches a concept of
rights. We don't have a 'right' to Free Speech or Association but as Christians
we will nevertheless speak and associate. They can kill us but we won't stop,
indeed we cannot.
These technologies are meant to stop undesirable speech and
association. That's what they're for. Thus since I intend to break such laws or
rather refuse to obey them I will not hand them the tools to catch me.
We need to watch what's happening in China because while the
West decries it, the Western leadership is at the same time making preparations
and taking notes. It's coming. That system (with its citizenship/social credit
score) will be implemented in the West. Whether this happens incrementally or
not is immaterial. For those who think such a system will never be implemented
here, we only need to point to the example of 9/11. That's all it would take.
Another event like that and we'll wake up to a very different world. In many
ways the system is already nascent. We have a tiered social order and for those
who would operate at even a fairly basic level must have credit, licenses,
permits and the like. There are still ways to avoid some of these things and
many do but all would acknowledge the windows and loopholes are closing and despite
the delusions of some, it's not a Leftist plot. It is largely driven by the
corporations, their profit motives and their tactics to manipulate the market
and individual consumers. They in turn work with and heavily influence the
political order.
Unlike the convoluted thinking of some Dispensationalists,
taking the Mark if indeed the Mark is some kind of barcode (or perhaps being
plugged in to a biometric data base) will not send you straight to hell. This
common superstition is held in defiance of basic soteriology. God isn't playing
a game and suddenly because you're held down and given a chip, barcode or
scanned doesn't mean that you're Christianity is now reckoned as bogus. I will
only say that those who willingly surrender to such statist technologies (and
the larger system) place themselves in spiritual danger, risk a road to
accommodation and if faithful are only delaying and complicating their
inevitable conflict with the state. And again sadly at this point those who see
a problem are falling into the survivalist-militia-gun toting resistance, which is sin. Their mindset
is wrong, they're misdiagnosing the problem and have embraced a very
wrong-headed and dangerous solution.
For my part once I see the writing on the wall, I'm ready to
bring the confrontation to a head and start openly refusing. For me it's a case
of obedience and it's for the cause of the Kingdom. We're almost there. The ebb
and flow will continue and perhaps God in his longsuffering mercy will turn the
current tide. It is in His hands. These trends are alarming but we're told
there will be wars and rumours of wars. In other words this age is
characterised by trouble and there's no escaping it. Those who are being sold a
cross-less Christianity of earthly glory and power are being sold a lie. And
it's not just the followers of Osteen. That theology in a milder and more
subtle form dominates the entire Evangelical scene. Confessionalists also fall
into these traps. Just the other day in a Confessionalist context I heard a
rather absurd conversation on economics, wholly rooted in false assumptions and
it devolved into a scene I know all too well... fat scholastic-academic types
in bowties talking about the glories of free markets and a discussion of just
who should be executed in a Christian state. These people have strayed so far
from the New Testament it's hard to know where to begin. The truly represent a
cross-less Christianity. They think the Cross of Christ is a tool of power, a
sword to be wielded.
Christ bears the cross but we're also told to take up our own
and follow in his footsteps (1 Peter 2.21). This basic Kingdom truth is ignored
by many when it comes to everything from ethics to economics. They don't resist
the power of the state or fear it. They want to capture it and control it.
They're blind to what it does to them and how it corrupts every aspect of the
Church and the Christian life. The lessons of Tolkien and his ring are lost on
them. The lessons of history are ignored and the Scriptures are read through their
corrupted, covetous and ultimately blind eyes.
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