Going Underground

Chris­tian­ity was designed to be an under­ground move­ment to counter what Paul called “the pow­ers of this dark world and…the spir­i­tual forces of evil in the heav­enly realms.” It is not exactly a secret soci­ety but it func­tions much like one. The insti­tu­tional church, through the ages, has often been a rub­ber stamp for some of the evil forces, but at its core it is the oppo­site. Denom­i­na­tions tend to line up along polit­i­cal lines of the major par­ties, but only to their embar­rass­ment in the end. The true church is never com­man­deered for any polit­i­cal pur­pose. It func­tions as antag­o­nist to the sta­tus quo. It is the wild card in his­tory that ulti­mately deter­mines the out­come of the game.

At any given minute, the state can take all church prop­er­ties, and has done so in the past. It can imprison and even kill church mem­bers, and often has through the cen­turies, but it can­not stop the call­ing by God of the com­mon per­son to be light in a dark world. The inevitabil­ity of phys­i­cal death stops all dem­a­gogues in their tracks sooner or later. It is not about who con­trols the masses but whose side you are on in the strug­gle of good and evil. Pos­i­tive spir­i­tu­al­ity can­not be stopped. Light inevitably over­comes darkness.

I live with a cer­tain detach­ment toward it all. I know I am here for only so many decades. Feath­er­ing my nest here is done a bit min­i­mally. The winds of time even­tu­ally blow the nest away. Com­fort and worldly secu­rity are both ter­ri­bly tem­po­rary. I look at political/social agen­das and just smile. They have no final con­trol over me. For those that under­stand the call­ing, the smile is the same. The peo­ple in the trance around us are fight­ing for a world they can­not ulti­mately have, while we are receiv­ing a bet­ter world that can never be taken away.

Liv­ing spir­i­tu­ally under­ground means hav­ing it all by hav­ing noth­ing. It means reign­ing by serv­ing and win­ning by los­ing. Jesus is the epi­cen­ter of the para­dox and its cham­pion. The smile of spir­i­tual resolve is con­ta­gious. The threats and heavy-handedness of insti­tu­tions are met with a grin. They can take what you have but never who you are. You have gone under­ground await­ing resurrection.