This Void is Real

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This Void is Real/This Void is Filled
by B.T. Killmon
(Home)

A void has formed in our nation where Christ should stand. As Christians, we recognize this sin in ourselves that others are so willing to embrace, but the Christian finds his redemption through Calvary and, hopefully, are able to spread Christ's message to those dying to hear His message of love - needing the voids in their hearts filled. Our duty is not an abandonment of the popular sphere: the Christian should not remove himself from the fray. Christ himself walked amongst those deemed by society as unwanted. But before we become similarly shunned, will we first comply by acting out our lives in this culture's ways?

Recent years have seen a spate of films with the message that "reality is not what it seems." Of this, even I might agree with Hollywood: this place where the images conspire to oppress and feign blame. We all can sense on varying levels, I think, the emptiness that results from a lifestyle (and its correlated thought-style) foisted on the American people by shadowy powers we cannot grasp. Make no mistake, this "matrix" is very real and very dangerous, and it will become our reality every time at every step, if we choose to make our permanent home one rooted in the sand of the popular sphere. This system of snares represent perhaps the oldest trap known - this illusion they present in which man trips himself up, and where no visible or easy outside agency sets up to take the blame. It's self-defeat, plain and simple. It's a fatal case of toxic cynicism, and it represents the end of most outlets of creativity, happiness, and progress. Give up all pretensions of your humanity, the devil whispers. Giving up would be so much easier, wouldn't it? Funny how such a thing arises from those who tell you that everything will be swell as soon as everything good and decent is first destroyed. Oh, they don't say it exactly, but it bubbles under the surface of every defeated and failing protagonist - every lovable loser - every character seeking only the world's meager approval - and for what end? You know the solution, friend, but so many don't.

The emperors of this foregrounded sphere - this facade of excitement, of what they arrogantly call 'entertainment': being so full of shiny surface detail that it tells us nothing about anything except itself - would love for you to exercise your freedoms just in the way they prescribe. "Vote," they say. "Rock the Vote," maintains a popular organization. Recently, they've stepped up their demands, by saying, "Vote or Die." It's an understood civic duty, correct? It's politics this year. But how much of himself does the modern Christian place in this world? How much does he withdraw and say that his ultimate place is not of this world? I admit I don't know. I have not yet found the proper balance. Still, colour me skeptical when the people telling me to vote are so different from I. These aristocrats of entertainment do not speak to me because they do not know me. Though it obscures, none of this apparatus even directly relates to the inner power structure: the President, Congress, and other powerful men who run our nation. I do not trust these elected men to tell me how to live, just as I do not trust unelected, unchosen and plainly unwanted (by this sovereign individual, at the very least) entertainers.

But I do not (and this, I think, would be the most cogent point to the inquiring Christian) hate these people who would tell me how to live. To hate is to submit to believing in their M.O. In my better moments, I find only sympathy for people so in need of Christ. With all the foresight man musters without any connection to his God, they place their faith in a material world not destined to last. Under human control, secular ideals only reach so high; even now, they are failing. The message will come fast: These czars of culture do not hold the soul like they control the dial. Look high where others hold their heads low. Christ blesses his flock.