Assessing the Nashville Bomber

When the reports broke on the morning of 25 December I was at first afraid that it was another Oklahoma City Bombing – another terroristic act perpetrated by a Right-wing activist – or worse, some kind of Trumpite-Christian fanatic. In some respects I'm surprised that more of such things haven't happened but then again, there are still many in those circles that seem to think Trump is somehow going to 'pull this one out' and retain the presidency. (I wrote this before the 6 January incident)

Then the reports shifted to suggestions that perhaps he was targeting the AT&T building because it was somehow connected to the new 5G networks. And sadly, I began to hear tales that the building was connected to the Biden family and that voting machines were inside – a case of destroying evidence or something along those lines. The arguments were never coherent nor were they rooted in anything factual.

Then things took a really strange turn and there was talk of a man who was caught up in extreme conspiratorial thinking - apparently an advocate of David Icke's 'reptilian' theories – or at least I'm guessing he was a follower of Icke. That's who I thought of the minute I heard about it.

And in keeping with the reptilian hypothesis that aliens are running the world – a kind of 'V' scenario for those old enough to remember the 1980's mini-series – Anthony Warner also expressed doubts regarding the Apollo moon landings and the narratives surrounding the September 11 attacks.*  

In other words he's painted as a nut-case, a lunatic living among us. This is frustrating to me as once again all conspiratorial thinking gets 'lumped in' with the off-the-rails stuff, the theories that have no basis in reality. Even the nuances are discredited and canceled out. If you even begin to question the 9/11 narrative, you must be an Alex Jones follower or you believe men didn't land on the moon, or that society is run by reptilians. It's pretty vexing really.

I do believe men landed on the moon and I do believe al Qaeda terrorists attacked on 9/11 but with regard to the latter I do question elements of the official narrative (and its aftermath) – just as anyone should with the Gulf of Tonkin, the Maine, WMD, and even to some extent – Pearl Harbor. This does not make one crazy. It makes one cynical. Anyone who isn't cynical of official US government narratives has been reading too many court historians, watching too many PBS documentaries, or more likely hasn't bothered to study much history at all. The more you know, the more you are likely to question official explanations, the more you are likely to discover anomalies and narratives that don't make a whole lot of sense apart from deliberate if hidden actions.

That said, there are many conspiracists who are simply off the rails and have divorced their ideas from reality – or demonstrate a paltry and woefully misinformed understanding of how things work.

Clearly this was the case with Anthony Warner.

But on the other hand, those who dismiss as insane because his views were off – is he really as 'off 'as people think? Is it all that strange to believe dark and sinister forces are at work in the world?

As Christians we must conclude that to some extent – at least in the broad strokes – he was right, even if he was rather misguided as to how it all works. Mind you, I don't think anyone truly understands how it all works.

As Christians we understand that there are both godly and evil angelic and even demonic forces at work in the world. On one level they resist the ordinances of God and attempt to thwart His plan. On the demonic level there is a desire to spread chaos and deface the imago dei, to degrade men and mankind. Daniel unveils realities concerning the political and spiritual order. Revelation takes it further and we see a parallel struggle unfolding in the eternal realm – a grand combat and drama of struggle between the Beast and the Lamb.

While I don't think we're surrounded by lizard people, there is nevertheless demonic activity and (I think) far more than people realise or are even willing to entertain.

This reality is increasingly downplayed by those who would overemphasize God Sovereignty (which they shape into a kind of cosmological monism) at the expense of a faithful reading of what He has actually revealed to us. Just because the battle is real does not mean that God is somehow less or other than sovereign. He is Sovereign and the battle is real. Just because I can't fit it all into a neat rationalist package doesn't mean that I have the right to question or reshape what God has revealed.

In the case of Warner, he saw – but didn't see. He saw but didn't understand. He saw the problems, but he had no answers. The world is evil but the story doesn't end there. That's where revelation comes in and without it – any honest person could end up on the bad and suicidal track that brought Anthony Warner to the place he was at on 25 December 2020.

What I see in Anthony Warner is a lost person in despair, a person who realises the world is broken and ruled by lies and yet has no answers. He doesn't even have a framework for some kind of personal peace or even more importantly a sense of hope.

Far more than any idea of being crazy, I'm struck with a sense of sadness. He's a person that in some ways 'saw' the world was not what it purports to be but had no answers and no hope. A nihilistic death makes sense in that framework – the sad but logical end of life without the gospel. Imagine grasping the Fall but then there's no gospel, no eschatology – just the Fall as an end in and of itself. How could there be any kind of meaning or purpose?

What dread terror to realise that you live in a sea of lies and that the truth cannot be known.

But of course as Christians we believe the truth can be known. By faith we know one who is the living Truth.

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*I was told 'V' was remade in the 2000's but I'm unfamiliar with anything other than the 1983 production which I remember watching at the time. It was one of the seminal television events on the 1980's.