Submitted 2 years ago by squashkin@wolfballs.com to christianity@wolfballs.com
This is from a protestant (non-Catholic, non-orthodox I believe anyway), full quote:
"The devil is not fighting religion. He's too smart for that. He is producing a counterfeit Christianity, so much like the real one that good Christians are afraid to speak out against it." -Vance Havner, who died in 1986
(Personal analysis of quote in comments)
My further personal reflections on the quote:
With protestants, some people argued this quote applies with respect to the creation of so-called "megachurches", and "progressive" groups. Since protestants have no central authority like a pope, it seems to me there is an easier barrier to entry and fake churches could just be spun up by people who hate anything to do with Christianity (Communists, etc.).
With orthodox, I'm not sure as much of what's happened, but I assume a similar attack happened as Catholicism is undergoing: I'm guessing those like Communists have become orthodox priests and bishops. The few orthodox I know are married to "Catholics" and otherwise live "modern" lives.
With Catholicism, there's been a push of the condemned heresy of "modernism", and some of us think the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s was obviously heretical and the creation of a new schism and weird situation that hasn't happened with Catholicism ever in the past, but which has some precedents. Remember that a counterfeit looks like the real thing - so the Vatican 2 church looks very much like the Catholic Church, but then they decided to change some things, like get rid of the "latin mass" and other "traditional" practices, and have been more ambiguous towards secular and leftist developments in the world.
So while I favor the traditional Catholic view which opposes the current Vatican, I also think this is a broad movement to try to falsely unite "Christians" together in to one false world religion along with other religions. I don't know how this will be accomplished, but we see some of the buzzwords pop up like false "ecumenism" which encourages "Christians" to put aside differences and unite only on what they agree on. I would like to note that I have also seen this trigger a false "anti-ecumenism" at times which I also don't subscribe to, for example so-called "RaDiCaL cAtHoLiC tRaDiTiOnAlIsTs" who can be pretty harsh, judgmental, etc. - I suspect there are some (like Communists) also creating "hardline" movements like this; they create the fake modernist groups, then these fake "traditional" groups to drive away people who simply want to follow the old normal Christian ways. As a different example, in Catholicism, we think the SSPX was created as a fake "traditional" half-measure to the Vatican 2 movement.
It seems like with Catholicism for example we had some people who took over the institution of what was formerly Catholic and they elected a "pope" of their own starting in 1958 onward, but the foundations to this movement (of modernism) were laid for some decades beforehand.
It's the same kind of problem like in medicine that a lot of us have seen today, we get people who've become doctors who use their medical degrees to try to argue for tyrannical mandates and for unproven treatments like the covid "vaccines". So they'll argue that if you're "truly for health" then you should be for these experimental procedures that we don't know the long term effects of. They may know better that people who actually care for their health may want to exercise caution against such things, but such doctors simply obtain the authority and then misuse it for their own agendas. We hear the same kind of thing from these people who've become religious "authorities" - "pope" Francis "plays dumb" and acts suprised that people are "vaccine hesitant", and says he thinks getting the "vaccine" is an "act of love".
Meanwhile, other people have raised concerns that the "vaccines" may be sinful to get because of them possibly containing aborted fetal cells. Since we don't see the Vatican creating major campaigns against obesity or smoking (which seem to contribute as much to preventing "official deaths" as these "vaccines"), and they omit any concern about the morality of taking the "vaccines", this again just suggests they're an institution that's been taken over by heretics. Whether the heresy of these people is known publicly sufficiently (public heresy exists) or not (their heresy is hidden, or "occult"), to me it's clear where their sympathy lies and thus I reject them and the movements surrounding them as non-Christian, non-Catholic. They promoted the Vatican 2 view that people ought to "follow their conscience" on issues without qualifying that people ought to inform their consciences before making decisions, and then again omit mentioning that maybe people might conscientiously object to taking a "vaccine" today, which by their philosophy should be ok to do.
"For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect." -Matthew 24:24
Anyway, so what are people's thoughts about the movement by "false prophets" to create a counterfeit Christianity today?
So while I favor the traditional Catholic view which opposes the current Vatican, I also think this is a broad movement to try to falsely unite “Christians” together in to one false world religion along with other religions. I don’t know how this will be accomplished, but we see some of the buzzwords pop up like false “ecumenism” which encourages “Christians” to put aside differences and unite only on what they agree on. I would like to note that I have also seen this trigger a false “anti-ecumenism” at times which I also don’t subscribe to, for example so-called “RaDiCaL cAtHoLiC tRaDiTiOnAlIsTs” who can be pretty harsh, judgmental, etc. - I suspect there are some (like Communists) also creating “hardline” movements like this; they create the fake modernist groups, then these fake “traditional” groups to drive away people who simply want to follow the old normal Christian ways. As a different example, in Catholicism, we think the SSPX was created as a fake “traditional” half-measure to the Vatican 2 movement.
This is all 100% correct.
Fr. Seraphim Rose (who I believe is already a Saint in some circles but I am not certain) has really written extensively on this, and Fr. Spyridon has mentioned it as well concerning the topic of ecumenism as a great pitfall.
It is part of the devil's plan to corrupt Chrisianity through universalizing it.
Monarque@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
This is a real good quotation, thank you.