# Thoughts on the coming One-world religion (anon)



## JennyG (Jun 20, 2010)

This was posted anonymously on another site:
_
Some years ago I was teaching a class on apologetics with an emphasis on confronting Darwinism. I was led to draw connections between a tri-partite division of the human person (body, mind and spirit) with Nazism, Communism and the New Age. 
I contended that all three of those political movements set out to hasten the evolutionary progress of mankind.
Nazism did it through an actual biological-type methodology, involving the physical elimination of the "unfit"; Communism went beyond that, aspiring to achieve a mental transformation-- the "new Soviet man"; but the New Age seeks a spiritual metamorphosis, to be achieved through meditation and/or union with the "gaia world spirit". 
Our cultural imagination is currently in the throes of this third movement (as clearly illustrated by the recent movie AVATAR), and it is not yet clear where it will lead. The first two movements, Nazism and Communism, were on an increasing scale of destruction of human life. It may be that the third, should it attain actual statist power, would be the most terrible of all. 
And of course, this movement does seek power over all of our lives; environmentalism, global warming propoganda, one worldism, etc. may all be catspaws of this final effort of Satanic hegemony._

I was struck by it and wanted to share it with someone, so the PB gets the benefit...does anyone have any thoughts?


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## Philip (Jun 20, 2010)

I would see such analysis as short-sighted at best. First, because it ignores developments such as postmodernism and pluralism, which have dominated much more than new age, and secondly because it only applies to a western culture which will cease to be dominant in the next fifty years.

Finally, on a theological level, it assumes a particular hermaneutic of the book of Revelation that not all share.

(as a note, the third major force that ought to be listed alongside fascism/Nazism and socialism/communism as being driven by Darwin would be libertarianism/objectivism/unrestrained capitalism, especially of the Randian variety---new age is more a philosophy of religion, not an ideology)


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## PointyHaired Calvinist (Jun 20, 2010)

Of course if you're a postmil you're looking forward to a one-world religion, since it will be Christianity.


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## JennyG (Jun 20, 2010)

> it ignores developments such as postmodernism and pluralism,


= just some of the latest handmaids (or catspaws) of antichrist!
I'm sure your analysis is right, and I don't know much about all the different "mils".
The writer does use the label "new age " in a fairly blanket way. I wonder, is there any one, more accurate name for the whole amalgam of "environmentalism, global warming propoganda, one worldism" at present competing for our souls?


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## TimV (Jun 20, 2010)

Great work, Johnathan.


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## Semper Fidelis (Jun 20, 2010)

JennyG said:


> This was posted anonymously on another site:
> _
> Some years ago I was teaching a class on apologetics with an emphasis on confronting Darwinism. I was led to draw connections between a *tri-partite* division of the human person (body, mind and spirit) with Nazism, Communism and the New Age._


_

The wheels fall off right at the beginning. His un-Biblical anthropology leads him to draw faulty analogies._


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## Andres (Jun 21, 2010)

sounds like someone has too much time on their hands


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## JennyG (Jun 21, 2010)

universal  then!
That's why I brought it here of course. But is it really unBiblical to divide us up into body, mind and spirit - could you expand on that?




> sounds like someone has too much time on their hands


- not meaning me I hope!!


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## TimV (Jun 21, 2010)

I can't imagine Andrew insulting a lady. He was talking about the author of the quote. How you would simplify things to that level is a bit off. E.g. the Germans lost somewhere around 100,000 people to food shortage related issues during WW1 and figured the Brits would do the blockade deal again, so in social darwinist fashion targeted 5 percent of the population that was State supported (criminally insane, etc..) which would equal that number which would die anyway. It didn't have much to do with racial issues. German Blacks for instance weren't segregated by race in the army during WW2 like they were here in the US. 

And the commies offed anyone who the current leadership saw as a risk to power. How one gets from there to specifically targeting a person's mind is difficult. 

And if the epitome of targeted killings is going to be spiritual, who's going to do the actual killings? Sweden's army? The Dutch navy? Denmark's airforce? What would the legal mechanism look like?

It all goes to show that if you start from the assumption, from the deeply held religious belief that evil will triumph in history then you automatically assume events will work together for the worst, and if things don't seem plausible it really doesn't matter since you've from the start decided your theory is correct and you pick facts out at random to support your theory.


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## JennyG (Jun 21, 2010)

> I can't imagine Andrew insulting a lady. He was talking about the author of the quote.


thanks... I was not being serious .
Without wanting to argue in favour of the passage particularly, I'm not sure how fair your analysis is. If Nazi Germany set out to eliminate the State-supported, by way of making the body politic as a whole leaner and fitter - then regardless of any racial aspect, the analogy with biological evolution looks close enough to me. 
As for communism, to make that analogy good I suppose it's going to be more a question of how the leadership conceived its mission. I wouldn't want to push that one far without a lot more knowledge than I have. 
On the last point though I think you're simplistic - the passage is surely right in identifying the modern "one-world" mindset in all its ramifications as a spiritual threat, and it isn't actually suggested that any bad consequences would necessarily take the form of a literal bloodbath!
A deeply held religious belief that evil will triumph in history,..? I don't see that there.

But I was more interested in what Semper Fidelis said about unBilical anthropology - meaning the categories of body/mind/spirit. I'd really like to understand that better.


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## Peairtach (Jun 21, 2010)

PointyHaired Calvinist said:


> Of course if you're a postmil you're looking forward to a one-world religion, since it will be Christianity.



As a postmil myself, I believe it is valid to believe that lots of bad things might happen to Western Christians before the Millennial Silver Age arrives, which could be a long time down the line. Whether anyone is likely to get a One World Religion off the ground in that time is another matter. 

This seems to be a peculiar - and sometimes mildly paranoid - obsession of some dispensationalists, because of their approach to the Book of Revelation. It's always theoretically possible but maybe not very likely. 

Greater persecution of Bible-believing Christians by Church and State in Western democratic countries of one kind or another seems highly likely however, and is already under way in one way or another. So we can learn to enjoy the "privilege" of Ecclesiastical and Statist persecution that our brothers and sisters in Muslim, Communist and Hindu (India) countries do.

The arrival of the Millennial Silver Age, when Ecclesiatical (Beast 2 in Revelation) and Statist (Beast 1 in Revelation) persecution of Christians will cease around the world, is often more like the ebb and flow of the tide than a completely even and smooth process.



> The first two movements, Nazism and Communism, were on an increasing scale of destruction of human life.



I would have labelled the three ugly sisters of the Enlightenment, Nationalistic Humanism (i.e. Fascism), Marxist Humanism, and Western-style Secular Humanistic Democracy.

The latter, heavily influenced, it is true, by the values of Sixties-liberalism i.e. the Hippy Ideal, has murdered millions of babies in their mothers' wombs. This has rightly been called "the Abortion Holocaust".

The common theme between the three is the Enlightenment one of formerly Christian societies putting too much confidence in man's finite, fallible and fallen reason, rather than looking to the God of the Bible. 

It will always lead to trouble and/or a big crash. God won't let these societies off with their apostasy. If they won't bow the knee to the First Horseman of the Apocalypse i.e. Christ, God will send the other three i.e. Trouble with a capital "T", until they do.


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## Philip (Jun 21, 2010)

> It didn't have much to do with racial issues.



If you don't count six million Jews plus Slavs and Roma.


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## TimV (Jun 21, 2010)

> If you don't count six million Jews plus Slavs and Roma.



Sorry, but Allied propaganda doesn't equal reality. Three of Germany's 8 allies were Slavic countries and 150,000 ethnic Jews joined the German armed forces to bump up a Nuremberg category. It's a very complex subject, and that was my original point.


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## Andres (Jun 21, 2010)

JennyG said:


> universal  then!
> That's why I brought it here of course. But is it really unBiblical to divide us up into body, mind and spirit - could you expand on that?
> 
> 
> ...


 
yes, as Tim mentioned I was def refering to the author of the quote. Sorry for the mix-up!


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## Philip (Jun 21, 2010)

TimV said:


> > If you don't count six million Jews plus Slavs and Roma.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, but Allied propaganda doesn't equal reality. Three of Germany's 8 allies were Slavic countries and 150,000 ethnic Jews joined the German armed forces to bump up a Nuremberg category. It's a very complex subject, and that was my original point.


 
The ideology was still racial, as was most of the killing. Not denying that the Germans looked the other way at times, but when the only way to get declassified as a Jew and avoid the persecution was to pay 1.7 tons of gold (as the Wittgenstein family did in 1939). Oversights and alliances don't deny the fact that the majority of those killed were killed for a racial ideology.


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## louis_jp (Jun 21, 2010)

I think the OP offers a legitimate insight. There doesn't have to be a one-to-one correspondence with biblical anthropology, however that is defined. It's just a way of looking at the problem. We tend to think loosely of people having body, mind, and spirit, and it could be that in their apparent hatred of human life tyrants therefore assault one or another aspect of what they perceive as human nature at various times. I think the spiritual assaults already occur though, either on the small scale, as with Jim Jones and other cultists; or on the larger scale, as with Rome in the middle ages. JMO.


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## JennyG (Jun 21, 2010)

> yes, as Tim mentioned I was def refering to the author of the quote. Sorry for the mix-up!


no worries, really- I knew what you meant, i was just being funny! Dear brother, I knew perfectly well you'd never say anything as snide as that would have been.

---------- Post added at 05:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:10 PM ----------




louis_jp said:


> I think the OP offers a legitimate insight. There doesn't have to be a one-to-one correspondence with biblical anthropology, however that is defined. It's just a way of looking at the problem. We tend to think loosely of people having body, mind, and spirit, and it could be that in their apparent hatred of human life tyrants therefore assault one or another aspect of what they perceive as human nature at various times. I think the spiritual assaults already occur though, either on the small scale, as with Jim Jones and other cultists; or on the larger scale, as with Rome in the middle ages. JMO.


So would the problem lie in treating those 3 aspects of humanity as if they were in practice separable (rather than just conceptually)?


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## louis_jp (Jun 21, 2010)

I guess, but people disagree over what a correct biblical anthropology is. Calvin argued for a body/soul duality, while writers today tend to argue for a more unified nature. The latter are probably influenced by neuroscience as much as anything, but they claim it's the view presupposed in the bible. If you're interested, a fairly decent book on the subject is here:

Amazon.com: Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible


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## Peairtach (Jun 21, 2010)

> I was led to draw connections between a tri-partite division of the human person (body, mind and spirit) with Nazism, Communism and the New Age.



This bit is cobblers. He wasn't obviously taught that the correct view of human nature is dichotiomous, not trichotomous. This is what the Reformed have tended to hold to. Man consists of body and soul/spirit. The words for soul and spirit are used interchangeably in the Bible. 

Where the words body, soul and spirit are used together the soul/spirit is being looked at from different points of view.

Berkhof says that Man _has_ spirit but _is_ soul. The difference is a fine one unless it is studied closely.

There is no link between Nazism, Communism and The-mess-we're-in-ism and three parts of humanity.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Jun 24, 2010)

The Chinese believer, Watchman Nee, from a Brethren background of sorts, taught the tripartite nature of man. Perhaps his primary book on the subject is _The Spiritual Man_. I was heavily influenced by this as a young Christian, along with Chas. Finney's and John Wesley's teachings (I know, I was a mess!).

The purport of the tripartite Nee emphasis is that one needs to monitor one's _spirit_ faculty (supposedly comprised of the three attributes intuition, communion, and conscience) in order to discern it's "state", and to see if the Holy Spirit is moving within it. Other teachers taught this but Nee was perhaps the foremost of them. 

What happens is one gazes within to "discern" one's spiritual life and condition. They called the spirit "the seat of God consciousness", the soul "the seat of self-consciousness", and the body "the seat of world consciousness."

As mentioned in an earlier post, this is a false setup (based almost entirely on the wording of 1 Thess 5:23), for our spirit is mostly used as a synonym for our heart or our soul, perhaps in its capacity for seeking God when energized by the Holy Spirit. We are two-fold in our nature — body and heart (or body and soul/spirit). We cry out to the One who is seated on the throne of Heaven, and who quickens us by His presence through the Holy Spirit. _He_ is our source of spiritual life; we don't find it looking within.

On another aspect of the OP, it seems that the amil (or _presently realized_ millennial) view is held by folks here who are mostly quiet and sure in their belief, while the postmil folks are more outspoken. All that to say, the Scripture continually paints a picture of evil men and seducers waxing worse and worse (2 Tim 3:13), and that because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold, but those that endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:12, 13), and many like sayings. I don't think it is legitimate to call this a mere "assumption", for it is the testimony of Scripture.

And in no way can it be said that this view thinks that evil will triumph in history, unless one would also be willing to say that evil triumphed in crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. To _the world_ it may have _appeared_ that way, but through death the Lord _overcame_ death, and abolished it (2 Tim 1:10). If, for our testimony to the kingdom of God and to His gospel, we are persecuted by the hostile and "present evil world" (Gal 1:4) and suffer death — _as a people world-wide!_ — this is not the triumph of evil, but the triumphant overcoming of the saints, who scorn death and persecution for love of our king. Nor does Scripture ever say that the present world will _not_ be evil, or in its entirety _not_ lie in wickedness (1 John 5:19) — before the 2nd coming.

When we see the disintegration of our societies — here in the U.S. and in the UK — the seers of the amil school see the hand of God bringing the clearly warned and foretold judgments of the Apocalypse to pass on an idolatrous and wicked world. To us, it is the fires in which gold is purified; to the wicked it is judgment and opportunity to repent, for worse is on the way, with the _worst_ the eternal state of the finally unrepentant. The preaching of these things _infuriates_ the wicked, and they will attempt in a final paroxysm of satanic rage — for that wicked one shall be released from the abyss for "a little season" (Rev 20:3) — to eradicate the entire global church. But just as with the murder of our King it is not the triumph of evil but rather its _impotence_ to thwart God's glorious plan of salvation for His purified and tried beloved children. And we know, we do not love our lives even unto the death, for His sake.

So we look at the madness of Mexican drug lords encroaching on our sovereign territory while the federal government thinks it no big thing, we look at the befouling of our ocean and coastal waters (the impact of this plague has not been measured yet), the economic course of the U.S. which is sure to plunge us into a situation like Zimbabwe or Weimar Germany and the resultant domestic chaos and anarchy, the laws in the UK increasingly tightening against the Christian, the allure of harlot Babylon seducing even professing Christians to cleave to her entertainment industry, and tech toys — _anything_ to draw them from a steadily maintained spiritual awareness of the Lord God — and yet the pollyanna eschatologists say, "Peace, peace, we'll take over eventually". . . . We look at these things and see the Almighty's sovereign hand bringing the age to its climax.

We need to cultivate the awareness of our Lord's presence, for the times are coming when our own strength shall fail, but His strength is made perfect in weakness. Like frogs in a slowly boiling pot we shall be cooked before we know it, unless we come out of the Babylonish ways we have learned to love. 

But no matter. The Lord will see to it that His true people will stay close to Him, and endure the days that are to come upon us.


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## Peairtach (Jun 26, 2010)

I agree with your warnings Steve. 

As a postmillennialist, I would say that the world is never going to be perfect e.g. free of sin and death before our Lord returns, and that better days may not come in our time and location in our lifetimes, and that the post-Millennial Silver Age may not arrive for hundreds or thousands of years.

The way things are in the United Kingdom, spiritually, are as dark as they have been since before the Reformation.

Whether that makes for persecution by local churches/denominations of true Bible-believing Christians, and by national states - there is some of that happening already in the West - and/or eventually by some one world system, remains to be seen. Obviously ecclesiastical, statist and pagan persecution continues apace in many of the nations around the World e.g. Communist, Islamic, Hindu and other nations.

Postmils can't/shouldn't, just because they are postmils, predict that the better days are just around the corner, within our lifetime, or even in the next thousand years.

The signs aren't good.

I don't know of any postmil that would claim to have insight into Scripture that better times are just about to appear, but there may be such, or such that give that impression. These might be termed "pollyanna postmils".



> and endure the days that are to come upon us.



We also - and all our brothers and sisters around the world - have to endure the days that are already upon us and the temptations and persecutions and sufferings we already face, as realised/inaugurated eschatologists.


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