DUDE!!!!

I just found out that there is a secret society called the Illuminati which is in charge of most, if not all, of the world's leaders, governmental structures, actors, and pop stars. I'm freaking out here. Holy cow. Burn your Lady Gaga CDs immediately. Oh yeah, and you may want to move somewhere where there's no commercial airliners flying anywhere close to you. Like maybe the Amazon, or the Sahara. Wait. Scratch that. They fly there too. We're screwed!!! 

So obviously I'm joking. And you probably know someone who knows someone like that. Conspiracy Theorists. One thing that has been more than a little disturbing to me is that recently I've noticed that several of my good friends have gotten caught up in this web of conspiracies. Now, let me say a couple things here. First, I'm not against being informed. I'm all for it. Second, I'm not against people researching and looking into suspicious stuff for themselves. As responsible citizens, Christians, heck even just as humans, we should be aware of what is around us, seen and unseen. 

But I've noticed something that has accompanied every single one of my friends as they've gotten sucked into this stuff, and that is a spirit of fear. Now, they are the first to ridicule that statement and say that they're not afraid, they're informed or enlightened. Meaning: because I don't believe the same things about these conspiracies, I'm an idiot stumbling around in the darkness. Sorry. I don't buy it. The common strain that I have seen in every single person I've ever conversed with on conspiracies is a subtle but frantic fear of impending doom. What bothers me about it is that most of these friends of mine are Christians. Believers in Christ the Creator. These are people who I have watched make decisions to follow a path that Christ sets out for them by the Holy Spirit every day. Yet they are caught up in conspiracy theories. I said before that I don't have a problem with conspiracy theories. True. But I DO have a problem when anything in your life becomes a focus to the point where you are living in a spirit of fear. Which is exactly what is happening with some of these people. This fear is consuming them. It is forcing them to spend large amounts of time focused on dark and sinister things that are (at best) debatable issues. My problem with that is this. As Christians, we are called by God to NOT live in a spirit of fear, but in an environment where Christ's perfect love, and His sacrifice on the cross, casts out fear. I don't mean to sound too harsh, but if we live in fear, we are not living in perfect love. 

In C.S. Lewis' book, the Screwtape Letters, one of the things that hit me the hardest was the idea that Uncle Wormwood was presenting to his nephew Screwtape that he should use any means necessary to get his "subject" to dwell on anything OTHER than what God had done for him and through him. One of the ideas that Wormwood said was most effective was getting the subject to focus on whatever plans the devil had for him personally, or for the country, or the government, or the military, etc, etc. You get the idea. Anything in our lives, conspiracy or not, which DETRACTS from what God has done for us leads us in a direction that is wrong. When we focus on what the enemy might or might not be doing SO much that it renders us ineffective regarding what God is doing, then I have a problem with that. 

Even if the Illuminati exists, even if the Vatican is covered in occult symbols (it's not; at least not the stuff created by Michaelangelo. I've been there - every single piece he ever created has the words "to the Glory of God" written, painted, or etched into them.), even if we've been under intense mind control from wicked one world governments who spray chemicals from purpose-altered commercial airlines, even if we are headed for a new world order which will bring anarchy and total system collapse, and the persecution and death of millions of Christians; why should ANY of those things be motivation on any level to live differently? 

What we all should fear more than anything in this world is the thing which takes our eyes off our Creator and Lover, even for the best intentions.