Seek First the Kingdom - The March of Hope - Chapter 6

The World View of the Kingdom

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Photo by Luca Micheli on Unsplash

Joan of Arc, my designated spiritual leader, protector, and guide for this March to the kingdom, was calling my happy troupe of saintly companions and me to break camp at the gates of the Church. It was time to journey into her mystical and astonishing land.

St. Joan's leadership motivated me to break out of my lifelong spiritual inertia and leap toward the first mighty footprints of those saints and Fathers of the Church who went before me. We are lost on our own; we must follow in the footsteps of the Fathers and our saintly friends to find our way. The Protestant mind will tell you that you need nothing but the Bible and a personal relationship with Jesus; his friends in heaven are not allowed to journey with you. The modern skeptical mind will say that you need intellectual growth and material science to lead you. But the safe path that mystically edifies both alternatives is the two-thousand-year-old way of the Apostolic Fathers and the saints on the Path of the Dogmatic Creed of Roman Catholicism.

I started above to introduce the notion that the first few chapters of the book of Genesis were of the utmost importance to us in our world today. As I conclude this section, I want to revisit that thought and introduce this new worldview that will animate us for the rest of our journey. Most of the firestorms of religious ridicule, mockery, and blasphemy in modern culture derive from completely misusing reason regarding these introductory chapters of the Bible. I am equally convinced that most Christians engage in a misguided defense of them.

Few arguments in the modern world better define the catastrophic cultural, philosophical, and theological conflicts between the secular world and the believing Christian world than those over the subject of creation. Here we have what the materialists consider a beachhead in their war to destroy religion and impose atheism as the dominant cultural philosophy. They genuinely believe that scientific discovery has made a sham of the story of creation. They relentlessly mock faith as finally undone, if only imbecile religious folks would open their minds.

However, a significant Achilles Heel for these materialists is that they, along with most in our modern culture, believe that scientific achievement is synonymous with intellectual attainment. In other words, atheists tend to think that since we can go to the moon and produce ever more impressive medical advances, we must have a superior intellect to Middle Age or Dark Age thinkers who knew nothing of our scientific achievements. This superficial understanding of the hierarchical role of scientific and technological achievement carries over in the debate about our beginnings, even if only latently and subconsciously.

Here is how this happens.

The atheist points to the scientifically determined age of the universe and boasts the apparent fact that this directly contradicts the biblical statement that the earth was made in six days. They rely on scientific knowledge in the material realm without any attempt, or at least with only wrong attempts, at philosophical reasoning, which is, by definition, non-material. Material science, in their mind, has indeed trumped scripture. And as regards a strict, literal, material scriptural interpretation of Genesis 1, it undoubtedly has.

It would appear to them that religion had lost a significant beachhead in the battle. Once the creation story goes, the original sin concept is just a little behind. With that, it is only a matter of time before the rest falls, most notably the value of Christ dying on the cross for, no sin, no need to be saved from it. You can see the battlefield map of the atheists with the lines drawn straight to Christ on the cross.

This view of theirs is akin to the English capturing northern France in the Hundred Years War, leaving the rest of France demoralized and hanging on hopelessly awaiting the inevitable fall of the entire country. We finally see how Eastern New Age, though spiritual, can team up with un-spiritual atheism to steamroll over Christian culture. Just as the French House of Burgundy aligned itself with the English in the Hundred Years War to conquer northern France, New Age aligned itself with atheism to try and defeat Christianity. New Age gives a spiritual-sounding alternative to the creation story and original sin, thus attempting to destroy the claims of the scriptures and the need for a saving Christ. No more sin or need for Jesus, at least not the real one who died on the cross and rose from the dead. Eastern New Age will give us alternatives that speak seductively of things spiritual, but these philosophies are nothing more than minions to the doctrines of the atheists, just as the Burgundians were French but were nevertheless aligned with the enemies of France.

But Joan of Arc was to the fore. As I continued on my spiritual journey, visiting the Blessed Sacrament as often as possible, trying to make that a daily event, I could sense the powerful presence of that great saint in my life. I had always known that Thérèse of Lisieux played a significant role in my conversion and was always very devoted to Joan of Arc. As I faced a war similar to France in my spiritual life, Joan also began significantly influencing my life. I attribute her with guiding me, at the instruction of Our Lady, to my new worldview. The Anglo-Burgundian alliance did not conquer France, nor was I to be by our secular, materialistic, and Eastern New Age foes.

What, then, is the alternative view here? How is it that religion can be saved? The beachhead has been captured by the enemy. To answer this, we must put things in their proper order. We must honor scientific knowledge but properly subjugate it to reason, thereby edifying scientific achievement and consummating it with God's point of view.

Go back to the story of the great king Gilgamesh in the Forward to this book. Imagine, again, a world with "no religion too." Continue to imagine the mythologies and wild stories about our beginnings that developed in the early years of humanity. Like the king, people everywhere without formal religion or dogmas, developed concepts about how they came into existence and for what reason. There was every kind of superstition and frightening legend. It was to counter those myths and misconceived stories that God inspired the writers of sacred scripture to write those opening lines, whereby God could tell all generations the truth about creation, our place in it, and the purpose of it all.

Most modern materialists mock the Bible, particularly the first few chapters of Genesis, as being a "myth." They need to be made aware that the biblical story of creation was given to us to refute ancient myths.[1] Where would I get such a strange notion in light of the apparent scientific evidence to the contrary?

The enemies have planted their flag of darkness on the beach and sing songs of “Science and Reason!” or “I believe in Science, not God!” They have campaign slogans such as, “Faith and Reason – NO!” “Science and Reason – YES!” They are prepared to take over the land.