When I started to write this post it soon became obvious that it was going to be far too long for a blog post. So I’ve posted this overview of the full article for anyone who doesn’t want to read the full version, although for those who do it can be found Here.
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‘This ‘Hideous Strength’ is far more fearsome and all-embracing than (C.S) Lewis envisaged over 70 years ago. The technology available is far more potent and far reaching in its ability to capture imaginations and minds than at any point in the world’s history. The political will of the opponents of Christianity is strong and unrelenting. The Church by and large appears confused and compromising. The stakes are incredibly high; nothing less than the survival of a civilization and the eternal well-being of countless souls.’
Many Christians will listen to sermons, or attend Bible studies, on Ephesians 6:12, and hear about ‘the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world, and the spiritual forces of evil’ that the Apostle Paul warns the Church about, yet remain seemingly unaware of the battle that the Church is in.
The Enemy
The Enemy we face is described by Anglican Minister Melvin Tinker, author of ‘That Hideous Strength-How the West Was Lost’, in the above quote. A point emphasised by Rod Dreher, (author of the ‘Benedict Option’) when he writes that –
‘The spiritual crisis which is engulfing the West is the worst since the end
of the fifth century.’
I have addressed this issue in my book, Quantum Mission, arguing that we are at a seemingly little recognised hinge point in history, a time such as the western Church has not faced since the time of the 5th and 6th century Celtic mission to northern Europe. Yet most pulpits are silent on these issues.
As we face this Crisis however, it is vital that we do not forget the lesson of Genesis 3:1 where we are told that Satan is more cunning, or more subtle, than all the other creatures God has made, and that includes humans.
Know Your Enemy
A famous maxim about war states that a primary principle is to ‘Know your enemy’. Tragically however, not only are most western Christians ignorant of, or indifferent to, the Enemy, but they run their churches and live their lives as if he doesn’t exist. However, Jesus made it very clear that he most certainly does! e.g., Mark 1:13.
What then is the evidence of his activity in our society? How does this Hideous Strength manifest himself? Among other ways, He does so in the guise of what might be called the Cultural Marxism that has very subtly taken over our institutions; the schools and universities that our young people go to and are being indoctrinated in; as well as governments and corporations.
The dangerous tragedy is that, given the state of our education system for now several decades, Marxism and the toll of human suffering it has wrought and will so do again is something few people under fifty years old or so know much about, and therefore its mistakes they are likely doomed to repeat.
So here is a Marxism Primer, that is a brief list of some of the main characteristics of Marxism, that shows it to be deeply anti-Christian. Most of these can be seen in George Orwell’s book, ‘1984’ which should be compulsory reading for every school child (and good luck with that!).
1. Marxism is officially Atheistic
That is, it declares that God doesn’t exist, and so the Bible is a fiction. This is the most important characteristic of Marxism that makes it a tool of the Enemy, and poisonous to society.
This essential tenet of Marxism is reflected in the Cultural Marxism of our own times as we see God kicked out of schools, parliaments, universities, institutions, corporations etc.
2. Marxism is Intentionally Divisive.
It fractures society by dividing it into those who are oppressed and those who do the oppressing, originally on an economic basis (the workers who produce and the controllers/owners of the means of production) as in the Soviet Union of the last century. Today’s Cultural Marxism is in its essence tribalist, the primary division now being between a lumped-together collection of minority groups (the oppressed) and western white people, especially Christians, (the oppressors). This modern divisive tribalism is totally counter to God’s desire for human society which is for the removal of divisions; for the establishment of harmony; and through Christ, for the creation of One Humanity- Ephesians 2:15.
3. Marxism Controls by Censorship of Speech and Thought
An important aspect of today’s Speech control is what comes under the banner of Political Correctness (PC). That is people are only free to say what is acceptable to the spirit of the age (Marxism), not what they really think, and increasing numbers are afraid to do so.
Other examples of attempts at thought and speech control are seen in the ‘cancelling’ of speakers at universities because they hold the ‘wrong’ views, or Christian groups being banned from using venues for meetings because their views ‘don’t align’ with those of the venue owner.
4. The State is ‘God’
Marxism effectively makes the state an obligatory object of ‘worship’ in that it is the supreme authority overall, as Caesar was in Roman times. That of course is what a Christian cannot do. This affects how children are raised and means that parents lose their God-appointed primary role for their children’s upbringing, and the state determines how they are raised.
5. The Manipulation of Truth
It has long been said, and well demonstrated, that ‘Truth is the first casualty of War’, and this is certainly true in the war Christians are fighting against the Marxist world view, and the Hideous Strength described by Jesus as the ‘Father of lies’ (John 8:44).
We saw examples of this in the 2020-21 Covid outbreak with bureaucratic and cross-media scare campaigns seeking to dragoon people into fear and obedience. Examples are-
1. The totally false and scary warning by public health officials that Covid would kill up to 150,000 Australians, whereas the Truth according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics is that, up to August 31st, 2022, only 11,441 died from or WITH (note) Covid.
2. The constant pressure to get vaccinated against Covid as a community duty because that would prevent us passing on the illness to others. This was false, because vaccination does not prevent transmission. Further, the vaccine producers have admitted that they did not even test to see whether their vaccines prevented transmission!
3. Another is the false claim that many Pacific Island nations are being drowned by climate-change-induced rising seas, a claim that is used to drive the demand that western countries should give trillions of dollars to such nations to help them overcome the threat. The Truth is however otherwise, as documented in studies by the University of Auckland and others show that 40% plus of the land areas of these nations have actually grown in size and another 40% plus have remained stable over the last six decades.
6. Manipulation of Language
Marxism, and today Cultural Marxism, manipulates language to achieve its ideological purposes. An example of this is when it seeks to replace millennia-old and worldwide terms such as Mother and Father, with terms such as birthing/non-birthing parent. This is in order to weaken the God-designed basic unit of society, i.e., the family. For the same ideological reason, Marxism seeks to blur definitions of terms such as Woman/Man to further a gender-fluidity ideology, and again weaken the family.
7. Removal of Freedoms
A major characteristic of Marxism is the removal of long fought for, and died for, freedoms of speech, thought and belief. Such freedoms that until ten or so years ago we took for granted.
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So the question is, how should Christians respond to the Hideous Strength that is filling the spiritual and moral vacuum left by the retreat of the Biblical controlling story that shaped and directed western society for generations?
Whatever forms they take, our policies must be ones that-
- recognise the reality that committed and active Christians are now reduced to a diminishing ‘Remnant’ in what has become a neo-pagan society.
- Start to educate Christians to be able to discern, understand and oppose the Hideous Strength’s subtle takeover of society.
- in the power of the Spirit, develop strategies that take on ‘That Hideous Strength’ like guerrilla units that are designed and are deployed to take back the Enemy’s now well-established strongholds in schools, universities, politics, parliaments etc.
For ‘The political will of the opponents of Christianity is strong and unrelenting. The Church by and large appears confused and compromising. The stakes are incredibly high; nothing less than the survival of a civilization and the eternal well-being of countless souls.’
So, for those of us claiming to be followers of Jesus, and even more importantly for Christian leaders, the question for each fellowship, house church etc., is-
‘What is our aim, policy, strategy to take on ‘That Hideous Strength’? Do we even have one?’
unbounded church 